My Own Lies
by Zealous Iconoclast
Summary: When you can no longer dream for yourself, it is always possible to find someone naïve enough to dream on your behalf. But how often can a man be kicked before he begins to see boots that aren't really there? The story of Maxine Calavicci.
1. Prologue

Title from "Funny (Not Much)" © 1952, Marcia Neal, Philip F. Broughton, Bob Merrill, and Hughie Prince.

PROLOGUE

"Why a train?" she had asked, her scrumptious lips puckering into a moist, strawberry pout. "That's so old-fashioned!"

He had chuckled and taken her sulky little chin between finger and thumb. "It's the experience, honey," he had said. "Taking the train to Niagara Falls is an experience you'll never forget."

She had squirmed between the satin sheets in the bed at the Sands, whining charmingly. "But all the way from _Nevada_? We'll be stuck on the train for days and days with no one to have fun with and nothing to do but—"

Then the light had come on, and her eyes went wide as a naughty smile spread across her face. She had giggled happily, climbing into his lap with a spirited cry of, "_All aboard_!"

The memory brought an anticipatory grin to his lips as he sat in an armchair in the smoking car, puffing on a Chevillo cigar. Here they were, on board the overnight to Chi. There, they would transfer for the Niagara Falls run. It was eleven in the morning, and he had been married all of ninety minutes. He had given her the pick of the chapels on the Strip, and she'd opted for class. They had said their vows in a pretty little walk-in done in white and black. The justice, or minister, or whatever you called the proprietor of such a place, had officiated in a cream-colored tux. Two of the bride's friends had served as (giggling) witnesses; the groom didn't have any friends. Not the kind you'd invite to a Vegas wedding, anyway. Once upon a time he had had buddies like that, but not any more. Ah, well. Them's the breaks.

This had been, actually, his most expensive wedding. The first one had been sweet and small: her family and friends, his squadron, and a little church by the sea. The second wedding he recalled as a media circus. NASA had footed the bill and written it off as part of the Public Relations stunt of the decade. The third had been by far the largest: a Jewish matrimonial festival that despite the haste had had almost two hundred guests and all the trimmings. The father of the bride had financed this, and all that the groom had had to worry about was his Hebrew pronunciation. The fourth, twenty-five months ago, had taken place at Wickenburg City Hall, and in place of a reception they'd had a romantic lunch in the airport cafeteria before heading off to Hawaii. Though this fifth ceremony had totaled up to ninety-five dollars and the honeymoon was reasonable, he and his fiancée had spent four days in Vegas prior to the nuptials, and between them they had netted a loss of forty-seven hundred dollars. More than he made in a month even before tax, benefit and alimony deductions. _Lots _of alimony deductions.

He drove back the impending financial headache. He'd worry about the money later. They had had a good time, and what was awaiting him in the compartment when his forty-minute exile expired…that was priceless.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

In the compartment, she was in a quandary. In the closet-like bathroom, the contents of her lingerie bag were scattered around as if the piece of luggage had exploded. Tears of frustration were coursing down her cheeks, and she rumpled her silky golden hair in dismay. What—oh, _what_!—was she going to wear?

She hadn't given it a thought until now, but as cute, sexy, or downright raunchy as her many ensembles were, he had seen them all over the course of their courtship! If you could call it a courtship. She had thought long and hard before finally working out a new game they could play to celebrate the solemnizing of their relations, and she had one that was perfect! It was quirky, creative and erotic, and she knew that he'd love it, but it would ruin the novelty to have him come in and find her in a familiar negligee!

She looked at her reflection in the mirror, and despite her distress she had to smile. She was beautiful. He was always saying that: she was beautiful. No one had ever seen her that way before. Sexy, sure. Hot, yeah. But beautiful? Her new husband was the first and only man who had ever used that word, and the way he used it made you believe him. You had to believe him: you just couldn't help it.

With his perception of her in the forefront of her mind, she studied herself in the glass. Perfect skin, smooth hair that brushed her shoulders, glittery eyes and a neat, slender mouth. Her powder-blue dress set off her trim, statuesque figure impeccably.

Inspiration struck. She was beautiful: he had said so. She didn't need novel lingerie. She didn't need lingerie at all. Off came the dress, shoes, stockings and undergarments. She heard him murmuring "_You're beautiful, so beautiful!_", and suddenly she was pleased with what she saw. It was a strange and elating sensation. For the first time in longer than she could remember, or wished to, she looked at herself and she liked her body.

The moment of awed revelation could not last. Time was running short. She opened her makeup case and took out the packet of bright, primary green leaves she had picked up just for this moment.

In the compartment, she climbed into the upper bunk and set about preparing herself to meet her bridegroom.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

That was it: forty minutes. He made his way back to their compartment, his body swaying in time to the rocketing train. He could hardly restrain his excitement as he opened the door and slipped inside.

There she was: Venus herself, except that instead of a half shell she was displayed in a fold-down railway bunk. The white bedding surrounded her like a pillow of cotton clouds. Her gorgeous, long legs shifted seductively as she saw him, and her slender lips parted in a radiant, mischievous and alluring smile. She extended one foot and touched the tip of his nose with her dainty big toe. Something tickled his nostrils and he sniffed experimentally.

Mint.

_Mint?_

It was! Her feet smelled of fresh mint!

Seeing the realization in his eyes, she giggled and moved her foot down to brush his lip. He chuckled in delight. So _that_ was what she wanted.

His tongue flicked against her toe. This was going to be quite the honeymoon.


	2. Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

On a Monday evening, the Phoenix International Airport was as quiet as it was ever likely to get. Lance Corporal Dominic E. Carter, US Marine Corps, navigated the blue car towards the meters in front of the terminal. He was driving a vehicle of no make: completely unidentifiable. It was one of the one-of-a-kind models that the above-ground decoy departments of Starbright Project cranked out to explain their presence deep in the Arizona desert. It slid almost silently up to the curb behind a taxicab. The driver switched off the engine and exited. Locking the car with care, he went to plug the meter. Then he turned to face the terminal doors, but before entering the building he straightened his uniform with care. He had begged Colonel Smythe to assign him to this duty, and he was determined to look his best.

Inside the vast building, Nick grabbed a baggage cart and made his way towards the conveyer belt labeled for Captain Calavicci's flight from Hamilton. What he had been doing in Canada was anybody's guess, but it wasn't for enlisted men like Nick to question the holiday arrangement of heroes like Albert Calavicci. He was just glad that the Project Administrator had agreed to take the vacation. Everyone knew that the captain had been having a rough time lately. His marriage had fallen apart in some kind of disastrous collapse that had kept him away from Starbright three days a week for months. The divorce had been horrible and very messy: she'd taken him for everything she could, even his dog. The captain hadn't been sleeping well, or eating properly, and people said he drank too much.

Nick didn't believe _that_. It was just a nasty rumor like so many that circulated close-knit communities. Somebody who was jealous of Captain Calavicci had probably started it. Nick wasn't going to pay attention to lies like that. Men like Captain Calavicci didn't drink to forget their problems: they faced them with courage and determination, and they always came out victorious.

The first waves of people were filtering down from the gate now: businessmen in costly suits, a harried-looking woman leading a couple of school-aged kids, and a group of students wearing large knapsacks and enormous headphones. Nick's pulse began to pick up speed. Any second now…

He still couldn't believe his luck. He had only been transferred to Starbright six weeks ago, and here he was, entrusted not only with one of the "secret" cars, but also with the transportation of the Project Administrator. Captain Calavicci was a national hero of the highest order, the kind of a man the military hoped to produce once in a century. Everyone knew how he had kept the Apollo program afloat and fought for President Kennedy's dream. Nick was old enough to remember the Christmas mission in '76. It almost hadn't made it past the early stage separations, except that then-Commander Calavicci had manually piloted the command module through the critical moments. The Christmas Eve broadcast had been awe-inspiring, and that awe had carried through into the moon landing the following day. The image of the two astronauts playing catch against the lunar landscape, with the earth hanging like a marble behind them, was one Nick would never forget. Then the disaster, when the computers in the LEM had failed, and the commander and his pilot had had to jettison. They said that Captain Calavicci had saved his comrade's life by endangering his own. Long before his days with NASA, he had served as a fighter pilot in Vietnam. Shot down, taken captive by the enemy, and held for six years in deplorable conditions. Tortured, starved and humiliated, and he had come back from that hell to become the man Nick was picking up at the airport today.

And there he was! Nick had only met him once, briefly, on the day he had first arrived at Starbright—the captain had taken the time to introduce himself, welcome the new boy onboard, and give him a Project button. Despite this, Nick knew at once that the man in the brilliant blue shirt was Captain Calavicci. You didn't forget your role model's face. He had a small duffel bag slung over his shoulder, and his other arm was curled around the waist of a lissome blonde a good four inches taller than he was. She was giggling and trying to work a pricey Zippo lighter as they walked. Her escort had a cigar clamped between his teeth. Nick snapped to attention, though the captain had not spotted him yet.

The girl laughed again in response to something Captain Calavicci said as he puffed on the cigar. She was very young: just about Nicks age, and she was wearing neon orange leggings, bright pink sneakers, and a white sweatshirt that reached well down on her slender thighs. Probably someone he had met on the plane, Nick reflected. Captain Calavicci loved to flirt with beautiful girls. People said that he was promiscuous, but Nick thought that was a harsh way of putting it.

The girl pointed, and Captain Calavicci turned. He spotted Nick, grinned, waved, plucked the cigar from his lips and kissed the girl passionately. Then he took her hand and they ran across the room.

Nick saluted crisply. The captain smiled. "At ease, Corporal," he said. Nick stood down. Captain Calavicci extended his hand and shook Nick's firmly. "Dominic Carter, isn't it?"

Nick flushed with gratification. "Sir, yes, sir!" he breathed. Then he added self-consciously, "My friends call me Nick."

"Nick it is, then," Calavicci said warmly. "How's life treating you, Nick?"

"Couldn't be better, sir!"

"That's what I like to see!" the captain said. He turned to the girl. "Max, this is Lance Corporal Carter, whose friends call him Nick. Nick, this is Maxine, my wife."

"_Wife_, sir?" Nick blurted in spite of himself. His eyes widened at this horrible lack of tact.

Captain Calavicci's smile didn't waver. "That's right," he said. "Isn't it?"

Maxine—Mrs. Calavicci, Nick corrected himself, still not quite fathoming it—giggled and nodded. Then she turned towards the carousel, where the flight's baggage was starting to surface. Picking up on her cue, Captain Calavicci deposited his carry-on (or perhaps it was hers, Nick thought, still flustered by his own faux pas) on the cart. He moved towards the conveyer, watching the entry port with an almost predatory look in his eyes. The young woman (Mrs. Calavicci, _Mrs. Calavicci_) followed, parking behind him with her arms around his waist and her chin on his shoulder. Nick struggled to navigate the cart nearer, but the throng of travelers was too thick to allow that.

Captain Calavicci said something, and his new bride giggled again, nibbling his ear. Nick shifted uncomfortably. She looked about _his_ age, and if that was the case, then the captain was old enough to be her father. He chided himself for that disrespectful thought, and watched as the older man sprung forward and nimbly caught up two suitcases. Nick abandoned the cart to relieve him of them, and the officer ducked back to hook his kit bag. This he tossed unceremoniously over the heads of the crowd, winking as Nick caught it and placed it carefully with the rest of the baggage. The captain then returned to the carousel, waiting impatiently for something more. His young bride started toying with his hair. He sprung from her grasp, seized a black garment back, swung around to catch her about the waist, and sprinted through the throng towards Nick.

"That's it," he said, giving her another smacking kiss. "Off we go."

He grinned at Nick, who felt his heart swelling with elation once more. His idol was actually looking at him, talking to him, standing no more than four feet away from him.

They reached the car and Nick began to stow the luggage in the trunk. Captain Calavicci opened the rear door for his wife, and then came around behind to help.

"That's really not necessary, sir—" Nick protested. The captain only shrugged and put away the last two bags. He beat Nick to closing the hatch, too, and then gave the enlisted man a companionable pat on the back as he moved off to climb in after the lady.

Nick got into the driver's seat and taxied away from the airport. A glance at the rearview mirror told him that the couple in the back seat were making themselves very comfortable. They were smothering one another with kisses. Between each, she giggled and the captain murmured, "Maxine, Maxine, Maxine," with incredible passion.

Suddenly a silvery laugh rang out as Mrs. Calavicci pulled something out of her husband's back pocket. Captain Calavicci tried to snatch it back, but she turned away from him, giggling yet again.

"Maxine, _give me that_," the captain hissed.

"No-oh," she teased. "I want it."

"Maxine! Give me—" He fell silent as he realized it was too late to stop her.

The setting sun glinted off of a stainless steel hip flask as Mrs. Calavicci tipped it against her lips. She giggled yet again and tried to administer some to her husband. He resisted, and his furtively shifting eyes locked with Nick's in the mirror.

The young Marine flushed and refocused his attention on the road. He thought he saw Captain Calavicci snatch the vessel and knock back a hasty swallow, but he tried not to notice.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

"Where are we _going_?" Maxine asked at last. They had been riding for more than an hour. After retrieving his flask Al had subsisted into silence, passively accepting her caresses but never reciprocating.

"The Project," he said flatly.

Maxine tried to study his face. Was he angry with her? He'd almost yelled when she had taken his flask. It didn't make sense. They had fooled around with it all they wanted on the plane, refilling it from their airline-sized bottles, teasing each other with it, laughing until the other passengers had to have thought they were nuts. Then suddenly it wasn't okay?

Maxine didn't want to make him mad. She hadn't been trying to. All she wanted to do was flirt a little, but for once Al didn't want to play. Normally, that was all he ever wanted to do. Everything was a game. Everything was a laugh. It was always time to have some fun. That was one of the reasons she'd fallen in love with him.

At first she'd resisted that. She knew guys never fell in love. They'd get hot for you, but they wouldn't love you, so if you fell in love with them that gave them a huge advantage. Then they'd dump you, or worse. She'd dated some real jerks. Al, though, was different. He just wanted to be happy, and he wanted everyone around him to be happy, too. He was so sweet, and funny, and romantic. She never would've thought a train trip to Niagara Falls would've made a romantic honeymoon, but it had. Oh, boy, it sure had!

Maxine cuddled close to her husband, who was staring moodily out the window as the desert sped past. She stroked the nape of his neck with her index finger. He didn't seem to notice. She wished drowsily that he would turn his head and look at her eyes. She had pretty good eyes. Beautiful eyes, he called them…

She sighed a little and turned her head to look out the front windshield. There was something on the horizon: lights glimmering in the growing darkness. She sat up, her interest piqued even through the tipsiness and the after-effects of an fourteen-hour trip. This was it! The top-secret project where Al worked—and where they were going to live. She leaned forward between the front seats.

"Is that it?" she asked the cute young marine.

"Yes, ma'am," he answered. "That's Starbright."

Maxine shivered with pleasure as she felt Al's hand creeping up her back. "Almost there," he murmured. She grinned and flopped back against him, leaning her head back and kissing his jaw. He favored her with a small smile. "Now put your seatbelt on."

She obligingly scooted back into her proper place and buckled the harness. The lights were growing nearer, and she could make out a walled compound and a large, glaringly illuminated gate. She shivered. It looked like something from a science fiction TV show.

The car halted in front of the gates, which drew back to admit them into a narrow passage. The driver rolled down his window as another soldier approached, leaning in to take a look at the contents of the car. Al reached up and switched on the dome light. The guard snapped to attention.

"At ease," Al laughed. "How's things?"

"Fine, sir."

"No trouble?" he pressed, eyes twinkling.

"No, sir!"

"Did you even notice I was gone, Matt?"

The Marine shrugged sheepishly.

"That's what I thought," Al said sagely. "Can we come in?"

There was an awkward silence. Maxine noticed the man outside glance at her uneasily. She turned to look at Al again, wondering what was wrong. Al smiled a little. "This is my wife, sergeant," he said with a little amusement.

"Your wife, sir?"

There was something like skepticism in his voice. Maxine felt suddenly defensive. "That's right!" she said, rummaging for her purse, which had slid under the driver's seat. Folded neatly in the inner pocket was their certificate. She passed it over the young Marine's shoulder. The sentry scrutinized it.

"I'll be damned…" he muttered, then snapped to attention. "Sir, I meant no disrespect, sir!" he exclaimed.

Al's laugh almost shook the car. "It's all right, Matt," he said. "Just let us in, okay? It's been a long trip."

"Yes, sir," the sergeant said, handing the document back to Maxine and signaling.

They passed through into a broad, enclosed space. Maxine was too tired to have much sense of her surroundings as they parked. A couple of young men, also in uniform, hurried out of nowhere to take the luggage. Then Al had his arm around her waist and was leading her down a corridor and into an elevator. She hardly looked at the next corridor, but then Al was unlocking a door, and they slipped into a small apartment. The two soldiers, or whatever they were, set down the luggage, snapped briefly to attention, and left. Al locked the door, sagging against it with a satisfied sigh.

"Alone at last!" he said, wiggling his brows.

Maxine suddenly didn't feel very tired anymore. "We going to unpack first?" she asked.

He took brushed past her and into the kitchen, where he took out two glasses and a tray of ice cubes. From a cupboard he brought a glass of whiskey. "You want some?" he offered.

Maxine wrinkled her nose. "No, thanks," she said. "I've had way too much."

"Me too," he allowed cheerfully. "That's part of the fun."

"So, are we going to unpack?" she repeated.

He took a long swallow from his glass and shook his head. "There's only one thing I want to see you unpack," he told her fondly.

She let loose yet another tipsy giggle. Usually she wasn't much of a giggler, but when she was a bit drunk her more girlish impulses were set loose. With a compliant little wiggle, she pulled off her sweatshirt. Al froze with his glass halfway to his mouth, admiring her bra. It was exactly the same electric orange as her leggings, and every bit of it was lace. A broad, glowing smile made little creases next to his dark eyes.

"Maxine…" he breathed.

"Yes?" she prompted, biting her lip breathlessly, hoping against hope that he'd say it again.

He didn't disappoint. "You're beautiful," he said. "So beautiful…"

With a tiny squeal of pleasure she sprinted into his arms, incognizant of the tumbler of whiskey. He spun her around, chuckling throatily. Then he clamped his left arm around her middle and swung her to one side so that he could finish his drink. He deposited the dish, its ice still hard and glistening, on the counter, and then drew her into a deep, searching kiss. She twined her arms around his neck and wriggled her hips from side to side. He responded by pulling her closer to his own body.

"You know what I love about these silly pants?" he asked, caressing the spandex.

She chuckled and shook her head.

"They're—"

He was interrupted by a heavy, authoritative pounding on the door. Maxine's heart skipped a beat at the sound, and she pulled from his arms, looking frantically for a place to hide. The hammering cacophony sounded out again, and she forced herself to stay still, watching Al's face. He, too, had gone suddenly white, and she could see his right hand shaking as he drew deep, calming breaths. He laughed hoarsely and forced a grin.

"Little Red Riding Hood with the goodies?" he suggested, quirking an eyebrow.

"Ah-ha," Maxine gasped, fighting irrational panic.

There was another knock, louder than the others. Maxine's eyes darted to the door, which was shaking with the force of the contact. She tried to order herself to calm down.

Al moved towards the door and leaned against it. "Who is it?" he called in a wheezy, singsong falsetto.

"Open this door, captain!" a booming voice commanded.

Al rested his head against the doorjamb and closed his eyes. "Kenneth," he said flatly.

"Open this door!"

Al laughed almost ironically. "I'm the Project Administrator, Ken. Who's in charge here?"

"Of security, me," the gruff voice continued. "Now open this door."

Al chuckled, shaking his head and sinking to the floor, his back against the door. Maxine watched from the proximity of the refrigerator, confused as hell. "I'm busy," he called. "Come back in the morning."

"Captain, if you don't open this door…"

"Give it a rest, Ken," Al groaned in wry exasperation. "I've got a new wife to take care of, and—"

"You're harboring an unauthorized civilian!"

Al's head straightened with a snap. "_What_?" he squawked. He scrambled to his feet and snatched up Maxine's shirt from the edge of the kitchenette's linoleum. He tossed it to her, and she caught it instinctively, staring at him in confusion. "Put it on!" he whispered urgently. Then he turned, not waiting to see if she obeyed, and opened the door. In the corridor stood a broad-shouldered, daunting-looking man in the duty uniform of a Marine. "What the hell is this?" Al demanded.

"You admitted an unauthorized civilian into the compound," the other man growled. "I'm here to escort her into custody."

"Like hell you are!" Al said, squaring his shoulders. "Go to bed, Ken. You've been—"

"Colonel Smythe," the man said. "I don't use your first name, and you don't use mine. Understood?"

Al wasn't budging. "Ken, give it up," he said firmly. He picked up Maxine's purse from the top of the heap of luggage and drew out the wedding certificate. He passed it to the other officer. "Maxine is my wife, and she's not going anywhere."

Smythe's brow furrowed. "Your _last _wife," he said coldly, putting undue emphasis on the modifier; "required Committee clearance to visit the Project. What, exactly, makes you think that _this_ one is any different?"

Al rolled his eyes so enormously that his whole head moved. "Hmm, let's see," he said. "I. Live. Here. Now?"

The colonel's thin lips disappeared entirely. "It's my duty to ensure that the integrity of the Project is maintained, and without the proper clearance—"

"Clearance?" a cheerful tenor voice asked. Maxine watched in amazement as a trim young man in a costly black suit trotted into view. "Is this about Mrs. Calavicci's clearance?"

Smythe eyed him suspiciously. "Yes," he grumbled.

The other man's mouth cracked into a shimmering smile. "I've got her badge right here," he said, holding out a sheaf of papers and a plastic tag about twice the size of a credit card. "It's provisional, of course," he told Al while the colonel examined the documents. "Until we can get her picture and specifications."

"Thanks!" Al said. From the way he slumped in relief, Maxine could tell that the guy in the suit had done him an enormous favor. "You're sure efficient."

The younger man smiled. "The chemistry lab may sleep, Captain, but Human Resources never does. Can I meet the new Mrs. Calavicci?"

"Sure!" Al enthused. "Maxine!"

Without thinking of her state of seminudity, Maxine hurried forward. The adrenaline released by the moment of panic had addled her thinking. She hardly noticed the way three pairs of eyes bugged in consternation as she appeared at Al's side. The man from H.R. schooled his features first and his Hollywood smile returned.

"Uh… this is Maxine," Al stammered. "Maxine, Colonel Smythe's our head of security, and this is… uh… Dan Pendra—venen. From Human Resources."

"A pleasure, Mrs. Calavicci," Penvenen said, extending his hand.

Maxine nodded numbly, having to shift her shirt from one arm to the other before she could shake. "Charmed," she breathed, bobbing one shoulder a little.

"Now," Al said smugly, plucking the forms from Colonel Smythe's fingers and drawing Maxine back inside so he could close the door; "if you gentlemen will excuse us, we've had a very long trip home, and we need our rest."

He shot the deadbolt and tossed Maxine's clearance papers onto the entryway table.

"Dan's a heck of a nice guy," he said. "Now, where were we?" He curled his arms around his waist and settling one hand on each buttock. "Oh, yeah," he murmured sensually. "I _remember_! Do you know what I love about these silly pants…"

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Daniel Penvenen, ostensibly of Starbright Project Human Resources, closed the door of his office and allowed himself the luxury of a smug, ear-linking grin. Not bad for half an hour's notice. Old Pen still had it.

Colonel Smythe was absurdly easy to manipulate. The man's instinctual loathing of his Naval counterpart was a decided advantage.

So was that leggy bimbo—the one wearing the matching brassiere and long-johns.

All that remained to perfect the evening's victory was to actually obtain Committee clearance for her, before Calavicci rooted out the lie or examined the forged papers. He doubted the last was a real danger. Between the alcohol on his breath and the high school whore in his arms, the captain was going to have a lot on his mind in the morning. Real clearance wouldn't be hard to get. Congressman Davies, Dan's contact, would be more than willing to ante up once he saw the merits of the situation.

Penvenen opened the bottom drawer of his desk and drew out a sleek black composition book—volume three in a continuing series. He opened it to the first blank page and sat down to write. First, he dated the page. Then in a crisp, professional script he started his report:

_New wife. Unannounced. "Maxine". Statutory rape? Further data required…_


	3. Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

A new marriage, a new beginning, Al promised himself for what had to be the hundredth time. He stared resolutely up at the ceiling, dimly illuminated by the light trickling in from the bathroom. Next to him, Maxine was fast asleep, her long legs curled towards her sculpted stomach. He wanted to touch her, but he couldn't. He was too busy trying to pull himself together.

He had really hoped to avoid a nightmare tonight. He had taken every possible precaution: the careful doses of liquor throughout the day, a glass of whiskey when he had finally reached the Project, fast and furious love-making with a beautiful woman, everything that usually helped stave off the memories. He raised a hand—thanks to sixteen ounces of bourbon finally almost steady again—and ran it through his damp hair. Who was he fooling? He knew why it had happened. He knew what he had forgotten. He had gone to bed without washing. He had given into the siren-song of the goddess lying next to him, with the sweat and subtle grime of a long day spent in the air still coating his weary body. In spite of his miserable attempts to protect himself, this oversight had left him vulnerable, and he had been dragged back _there_.

He tried not to happen again now, but his impeccable memory and gift for detail—a trait that over the years he had come to loathe, and that he wished very much he could obliterate—was too fast for him and for the liquid protection that had not quite kicked in yet. Six years without a real bath, six years without a hot shower, six damned years when he hadn't even been able to wash his _hands_ on a daily basis!

Though he had just returned from the bathroom, where he had taken off a whole layer of skin with his frantic scrubbing, he could still feel the accumulated filth of unending months in abject squalor. At Hoa Loa, he remembered dimly, the prisoners had been allowed to clean themselves once every three or four days, provided they were able to walk to the open-air washrooms—which the obstreperous ones who were constantly being "serious punished" usually weren't. You had half an hour before you had to be back in your cell, but if you were really lucky the guard would wait seven or eight minutes before turning off the flow of cold water to the concrete sink in your cubical. At least you had soap: a bar of harsh lye stuff that wouldn't lather no matter what you did to it. At the time, shaving with the blunt state-issued razors and that brutally abrasive surfactant had seemed like hell. Oh, the innocence of youth.

The camp commander at Xom Ap Lo had considered bathing a privilege. Cooperative—or at the very least not openly defiant—inmates were permitted ten minutes at the well once a week. It wasn't enough time for a full scrub, but at least you could do your hands and your face. If you were _really_ quick you could strip down and make an attempt at hygiene where it was most needed but (with diarrhea and dysentery rampant and the niceties of toilet facilities nothing but an academic theory postulated by the clinically insane) almost impossible to maintain. And, of course, in the stifling misery of summer you could wring some of the vileness out of your sweat-soaked prison fatigues.

Deep in the jungle where the V.C. influence was tempered neither by NVA discipline nor the unending pressure from the government to use the POWs as propaganda tools, there had been no such thing as regularly scheduled washing. When your clothes grew too malodorous for the guards' taste (not yours, God only knew), they were simply confiscated before you went in for an "interrogation" session, and returned afterwards in the same condition as before—or worse, if it was a slow day. When you yourself started to reek so badly that even Charlie couldn't stand the stench, they would truss you up in manacles and leg irons, hog-tie you with stout rope, and then throw you in the river. That hardly ever happened, though. Quon wanted to keep you ashamed, debased and miserably uncomfortable. When you felt like an animal, it was that much harder to resist like a man.

On one particular day—must've been late in the summer of '71—they had strung him up from the gallows just beyond the tiger cage. His wrists were bound with coarse rope, and spread in a "v" above his head. After four years of brutal captivity Al had learned to be thankful for small mercies when he could find them. He spared himself a moment of blissfully optimistic gratitude: it was murderously painful, but at least Charlie hadn't tied his elbows together this time.

At least, too, he could finally breathe a little—though as his body dragged down on his arms and the wasted muscles in his chest began to constrict he knew it wouldn't last. They had just hauled him out of the sewage pit behind Quon's bunker. He'd been down there for days, no food, no water, hip-deep in the vile sludge that was now coating his body. The sun was baking the muck to a thick, stinking crust over his arms and legs, his torso, his neck. He had tried so hard to keep his feet down there, but you just couldn't stand for that long, without food or sleep. His hair was matted with the stinking stuff, too, and he could feel the skin of his face tightening where it was smeared with the accumulated waste of guards, prisoners and villagers. Maybe, he thought, frantically trying to hold on to something as the pain grew and he could feel his joints stiffening, maybe with this coating of putrescence covering his skin, he wouldn't burn today…

Charlie wasn't blind to that possibility either, though. Instead of waiting awhile, they started whipping him right away. The lashes cut through the shell of filth and bit deep into his back. His blood started to mingle with the grime, liquefying it again. Another blow, and another. He stifled a scream of agony.

For hours it had continued. At last they had cut him down, but not before he lost muscular control. They dragged him by the ropes still binding his wrists, and deposited him in the tiger cage—because, obviously, he just hadn't suffered enough. It wasn't until before dawn the next day that he roused sufficiently from the stupor of torment to realize that his back was sure to go putrid with infection…

It hadn't rained for more than a week after that.

Al moaned softly, shuddering as he surfaced out of the intrusion. He was trembling again, and wondered whether he should try to make it into the other room for another drink. He wanted to shower again, but wasn't sure if his legs would support him. He had a dread fear of collapsing in the shower and having Maxine find him like that… she had no real sense yet of his weakness, and if he could just keep her from finding out…

Maxine. She stirred beside him as if responding to his thought. Al rolled his head towards her. She was gorgeous. She was real. She was here, now, in the present.

He reached out almost frantically and pulled her into his arms, his lips finding her sleep-slackened mouth and inhaling deeply of her fragrant breath. She murmured something, and her hands instinctively caressed his back. Al almost cried as that sensation penetrated his fogged mind. She didn't care. She didn't find him vile, filthy, disgusting. She was holding him.

She was also asleep, a cruel voice in the back of his head taunted. If she woke up… if only she knew what he had been thinking about a minute before…

Desperately, his mouth pressed harder against hers. He clutched the back of her head with one hand, his fingers catching on her silken hair. Her grip on his body tightened a little as she responded intuitively to the advances. Then her eyes opened in the semidarkness, and she smiled.

"Hey," she breathed, wriggling nearer to him and pressing against him.

He _didn't_ repulse her. She _wasn't_ revolted by his presence. She didn't pull back from his touch. As they both gave in to the passion of the moment, neither noticed the hot tears of gratitude that coursed down Al's cheeks.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Donna Eleese hated Starbright.

She had come to the government with the proposal six years ago, fresh out of graduate school with two doctorates under her belt, rose-tinted glasses on her nose, and stars in her eyes. Along with three other scientists including her mentor, Doctor Darian Hubbard of Caltech, she had laid out a strategy for achieving the impossible. Backed by the forward-thinking Admiral MacArthur and two enthusiastic senators, they had quickly obtained funding under a top-secret cart-blanche contract with the Department of Defense. The foundations had been sunk, the synchrotron laid out, and the cover for the Project established. Inside twenty-eight months they were sixty percent operational, and starting to run acceleration tests.

In the third year, things had started to go wrong. Doctor Hubbard had suffered a debilitating stroke that had pushed him into premature retirement and left Donna as the most qualified quantum physicist at Starbright—and possibly in the country. Though still struggling to develop as a scientist, she had found the burden of management thrust upon her shoulders without warning. The added duties of staff appointments and team coordination had been in no way offset by her increased authority and the sudden recognition of her invaluable, indeed indispensable, nature. In her struggle to expand into this new and unwanted role, Donna knew that she had stepped on people's toes, bruised egos, and created an image of herself as a draconian and authoritarian witch. People had begun to see her as argumentative, demanding and generally hostile. What they couldn't see was how much she loathed the burden of command forced upon her, and how insecure she was in the new position. She didn't want to be a department head: all she had ever wanted to be was a scientist.

Not ten months after Doctor Hubbard's stroke, Admiral MacArthur had announced he would be leaving the project as soon as he could train a replacement. So had begun the Age of Calavicci.

Every time she thought about the Project's new Administrator, Donna found her teeth grinding with frustration. There was no denying the captain had charisma—he did, and in copious amounts. His bravado was equal to none, and he was a definite crowd-pleaser. For example, a year ago he had turned one of the useless polymers that the chemistry department was constantly cranking out in their search for gel coolants—this particular one a phosphorescent hard plastic that emitted 2.4 candles of neon blue light—into "Starbright" buttons. That had delighted the entire staff. Even Donna owned one. It was brilliant: the kind of genius creation that only a man with the mind of a sixteen-year-old could have dreamed up.

She didn't mean that Calavicci wasn't intelligent. He was definitely sharp. He had a degree in chemistry that he had obtained before Donna had learned how to read—that meant that it was fundamentally useless. His masters, also obtained at M.I.T., was much more current. It involved electrical engineering, and to a lesser degree computers. Prior to allowing MacArthur to bring him on the Project, Donna had made a point of reading his thesis. With the theoretical scientist's instinctive scorn of her pragmatic counterparts, Donna reflected that at least Calavicci could change a light bulb.

He also had an amazing adaptive mechanism. He could pick things up with amazing rapidity. This wasn't what Donna considered a desirable trait. Quite the contrary. His ability to fake his way through a conversation as if he knew what he was talking about—and there was no way he could: a fighter pilot from the slums of New York just wasn't mentally capable of comprehending physics so advanced that it bordered on fantasy!—made him a very dangerous associate. People who appeared more intelligent than they were could cause some very serious problems, especially when they were deluding themselves as well as others.

The one thing Donna absolutely couldn't stand about Calavicci, however, was his personality; the very trait that endeared him to so many. Most of the women at the Project found his advances flattering and his carriage charming. Donna saw him for what he was: a lecherous, middle-aged ex-star-jock whose ego had been inflated beyond belief by a decade of ululating press attention. The Congressional Medal of Honor for valor in Vietnam was only the start. There were citations for battles, for wounds, for comrades saved, aided and honorably buried, for his antics in space, and for service as a flight instructor (the man even had _teaching_ medals!). This unending stream of honors and ten years of being told how wonderful he was had made Calavicci into an intolerable egotist, if you gave him the benefit of the doubt and didn't just assume he'd been born that way.

It didn't help that he liked his liquor. Though he didn't turn up for work drunk, and he was always meticulous about appearances, it was no secret that every time he rode into town on his ridiculous black bike he returned with several bottles of booze. There was something about the very concept of a hard-drinking, lascivious old man that Donna found fundamentally repulsive. During her first summer of post-secondary education she had taken English Lit—in itself the course from purgatory—from a man like that. Professor Bryant, an alcoholic, dirty-minded wash-up who traded top grades for sexual favors, had wound up impregnating one of Donna's classmates that year. The girl's father had pushed through a shotgun wedding, and left his daughter to lie in the bed she had made. The baby had been stillborn. It stood out in Donna's mind as one of the most senselessly and stupidly tragic things she had ever witnessed. If only she'd known what was going on, she might have been able to change things. She hadn't, and she couldn't make any difference now, but every time she saw Calavicci trying one of his pickup lines on the other women at the Project, she was reminded of the cautionary tale of Jamie Lee Bryant.

At least, she reflected as she tossed away yet another piece of junk mail (_how_ do you get junk mail at a top-secret project?), Calavicci had shown no inclination towards catching himself a trophy wife whose life he could ruin.

It was three in the morning, and she couldn't sleep. Rather than descend back into the depths of the Project to wrestle with the frustration that was the accelerator, she was trying to get her personal life in order, and that meant sorting through the week's neglected correspondence. She tossed away a letter from the Caltech Board of Alumni. A letter from her cousin in West Virginia was slipped into a drawer to deal with later. The next envelope made her smile. It was from Doctor Hubbard. She read his letter ravenously. He was quite happy in Halifax, where he and his wife had moved to be near their grandchildren. He had enclosed an article of interest.

Donna unfolded it eagerly. Her mentor and friend was always sending interesting snippets he had come across during his perusal of the ever-growing body of primary literature. He had time to devote to journals that Donna couldn't spare, and he even subscribed to one or two of the more obscure and disreputable publications.

This particular article, Donna noticed with annoyance, had come from one of the latter. American Physicist Now was the tabloid of the world of scientific journals. Its submissions weren't even peer-reviewed, and in her experience the only people who published there were those without the knowledge, skill, validity, connections or know-how to publish anywhere else. In other words, the dregs of the scientific community. Underqualified graduate students trying to pay the bills, high school teachers with delusions of grandeur, small-town professors at community colleges, and other people no one with any reputation worth losing would touch with a ten-foot pole.

Still, Doctor Hubbard had obviously found something to be interested in if he'd bothered to send it to her. She examined the title. That was the author's first problem. Far from being the explicit, detailed banner one expected of a proper journal article, this one sounded like the heading for some freshman's D-grade term paper in Philosophy. She read it out loud, just to prove how moronic it sounded.

"_Holography and the Mind_," she sneered. She glanced at the by-line. _Dr. Samuel Beckett, M.D., Ph.D._, huh? What was an M.D. doing writing articles about holography, anyway? Exactly.

Deciding that Hubbard must have sent it for laughs, she tossed the article into the wastebasket. It wasn't worth looking at: she didn't feel like laughing.

Funny how little one did, when one hated one's life.


	4. Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

When Al woke up to the insistent reveille of his alarm clock, Maxine was gone. He rolled towards the edge of the bed and swung his feet to the floor, scrubbing his prickling eyes. He stumbled to the closet and dragged out his robe, writhing into it. The light was on in the other room, and he came into the kitchenette, where his new bride, already dressed for the day, was rooting perplexedly through the empty cupboards.

"There's nothing to eat!" she exclaimed, catching sight of him.

Al shrugged. "What can I say? I'm broke."

She laughed. "You're not broke!" she scoffed. "You're too lazy to buy groceries!"

"If that's what you'd rather believe…"

She stared at him. "You're _not_ broke, are you?" she said firmly.

Al twitched his shoulders again. "I have no money right now," he said in a take-it-or-leave-it voice. "you saw me paying for the honeymoon on credit."

"Yes, but—you mean it was _on credit_ on credit?" she gaped.

Al grinned and moved to kiss her. "You see how I put my reputation on the line for you?" he asked fondly.

She pulled away. "Al, there's no food in the house!" she cried, frantically trying to get through to him.

He chuckled and took her hands in his. "Calm down, Maxie. We won't starve." She looked around wildly, and he realized with a jolt that this was really what was worrying her. He drew her closer and hugged her slender shoulders. "I usually eat downstairs," he explained. "It's not the Ritz, but it's free."

Maxine smiled a tiny bit and petted his hair. "Are you really too broke to buy groceries?" she asked softly.

"Naw," Al fibbed, pecking her chiseled cheek. "I'm just saving for a rainy day."

This answer seemed to placate her, and she started to move her lingerie to the bureau while Al showered and dressed.

The truth, Al reflected as he raked the razor over his cheeks, was that he had wracked up a lot of debt since coming out to Arizona. A year ago last Christmas, his then-neighbor, Esteban Penja, had been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic lymphoma—colloquially, blood cancer. His mother was struggling to raise the boy alone, and Al had picked up the vast majority of Stevie's treatment costs rather than let the child fall through the cracks. He had been rewarded a thousandfold for his nom: Stevie was in remission, and had been cancer-free for almost six months.

Nevertheless, between those expenses and the real trip to the cleaners that his fourth divorce had turned into, Al was a hell of a lot further into the hole than he wanted to be. With more than a thousand bucks coming straight off the top every month to pay off the ex-wives, he was trying to save what he could where he could, and groceries made the list of unjustifiable expenses.

An ugly, niggling voice told him it wasn't groceries he found hard to justify, but the array of potables he was still picking up once a week. Groceries were merely the sacrifice he made to vindicate _those _purchases…

That was ridiculous, Al admonished as he tucked in is shirttails and surveyed the final effect. When a guy worked hard, he needed and deserved his little pleasures.

Especially needed.

Maxine came into the room and made a small sound of delight. Al turned, eyebrow raised in an unspoken question.

"I've never seen you in uniform before," she said by way of explanation.

Al chuckled a little and swooped in to embrace her.

MWMWMWMWMWMMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

Maxine surveyed the array of food before her, and wrinkled her dainty nose in distaste. Pancakes, sausages, scrambled eggs, bacon, and a platter of tempting but deadly pastries. She took a piece of toast and a plastic tablespoon-sized packet of peanut butter. At the end of the counter there was a metal basin full of syrupy fruit salad, and she filled a melamine bowl with this.

Al had been flirting with the hairnetted food services worker filling his plate. Suddenly he reached out and caught Maxine's elbow, drawing her into the conversation.

"This is my new wife, Maxine," he said proudly. "Maxine, this is Celia."

"Pleased to meet you," Maxine said politely.

"Same here!" Celia beamed.

Al moved off towards a table at the back of the room, and Maxine followed him. He sat down with his back to the wall: he could see the whole room from where he was sitting. She took a chair across from him.

"Celia, she's great," Al said, taking a forkful of eggs and chewing methodically. "She has a stamp collection you wouldn't believe. Guards it with her life."

Maxine nodded, carefully garnishing her toast. This was so strange. She could feel curious eyes raking over her, and now and then she thought she could hear someone murmuring her new surname. It was obvious from last night's incident that Al hadn't told anyone that he would be returning from his holiday a married man. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. It seemed a little weird—but then, the whole situation was weird.

Maxine didn't know much about marriage. Her parents hadn't been married, and none of her friends were, either—though there were a few common-law couples in her circle of acquaintance. Nevertheless, she was pretty sure that most people (married or not) didn't live in bizarre subterranean frat houses where crazed Marines came hammering on the door in the middle of the night. Glancing over her shoulder at the growing meal queue, she wondered if _all_ these people lived here. What were they doing at this secret project, anyway?

When Al had called her up two and a half weeks ago to ask if she wanted to go to Vegas, the last thing she had expected was that they would wind up _married._ In her experience, guys didn't want to commit. They didn't want to tie themselves down: they were just looking to have a good time, and when they got sick of you they didn't want to be stuck in a marriage. When Al had proposed to her in the restaurant at Caesar's Palace—getting down on one knee and the whole bit—she had not really known what to say. Great guy that he was, he had immediately turned off the pressure and let her think it over. After a while, of course, she had come to the natural conclusion. She _had_ to marry Al. She didn't want to lose him. He was the only man she'd ever known who didn't—

"Gooshie!" Al exclaimed, dropping his fork into his almost untouched plate of grease and protein. "Gooshie, c'mere!"

Maxine looked around as a slightly podgy man in a white lab coat hurried over with his tray.

"Y-yes, Captain?" he said, smiling warmly. He was kind of cute, Maxine noticed, in a curly-haired goofy way. He certainly seemed delighted, for someone whose breakfast had been interrupted even before he had found a table. "How are you this morning?"

Al reached up to shake the man's hand. "Couldn't be better! What about you?"

"Fine, just fine," the man said.

"Glad to hear it," Al went on. "Gooshie, I want you to meet my wife, Maxine. Max, this is Doctor Gushman, our top programmer."

"Hi." Maxine set down her toast and rubbed her hand on the paper napkin before extending it.

"H-hello," the man stammered, looking suddenly shy. He shook hands.

Maxine could feel Al pressing subtly against her sneaker. She smiled radiantly. "It's nice to meet you, Doctor Gushman."

"You too-oo, Mrs. Calavicci," he said, marginally more confident. "M-my friends call me Gooshie," he ventured, glancing almost anxiously at Al.

The pressure on her foot turned into a series of approving taps. "Please, Maxine," she said.

Gushman's eyes flickered once again to Al, who nodded, grinning enormously. "Maxine," he murmured hastily.

Inspired by Al's expression, Maxine slid to the inside chair, taking her tray with her. "Would you like to join us?" she asked.

Gushman looked almost terrified at the prospect. "Oh, no, I wouldn't want to intrude…" he demurred.

"Please!" Al said. "Join us!"

He sat, and the two men struck up a conversation that Maxine couldn't follow at all. It had something to do with computers, but she hadn't even mastered her digital watch yet, and their technical jargon went straight over her head. Al's nose flared briefly at the beginning of the conversation, though his smile never wavered, and after a couple minutes Maxine began to see why.

Doctor Gushman had _terrible_ breath. It was the worst breath Maxine had ever smelled. She couldn't even place the odor, but the one place it totally didn't belong was at the table! She turned subtly away from the programmer, finishing her meal as quickly as possible. Finally, he and Al wound down, and Gushman made his excuses before reiterating how pleased he was to meet her, and the newlyweds were left alone.

Al smiled. "Well," he said, "time to get on with the day." He got to his feet with a grunt of effort.

Maxine rose as well. "I'm sorry," she said meekly. "I thought you wanted me to invite him…"

"Of course I did!" Al said. "You did great."

"But…" She gestured at his virtually untouched dish. "But you've hardly eaten anything!"

"Oh, that…" Al gazed perplexedly at the congealing mess. He shrugged. "So I'm not hungry."

He scraped the uneaten meal into the garbage and slipped his dishes into the tub of rinse water by the back counter. Maxine followed suit—though she had no leftovers to dispose of.

Al wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her. "Now, I'll take you back upstairs," he said. "I have to get to work, but I promise I'll come get you at noon."

Maxine frowned. "What am I supposed to do all day?" she asked.

He shrugged. "What do you want to do?"

She pursed her lips suggestively, and he chuckled. "That's my girl," he said, kissing her again. "After work."

"Promise?" she said.

"Promise!"

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

It was the scandal of the decade. By three in the afternoon, everyone on the property knew about the Project Administrator's new wife.

In the chemistry lab, two young technicians spoke in whispers by the fume hood.

"He met her in Vegas. I heard she's a stripper."

"Naw, she couldn't be! Not with those innocent blue eyes."

"I dunno. Legs like that…"

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

The cafeteria staff passed the word to its clients:

"Her name's Maxine. That's right: Maxine. Some kinda health nut."

"Must be on a special diet: fruit and peanut butter."

"She's having an affair with Doctor Gushman."

"Don't be stupid! Who'd even get _near_ Doctor Gushman?"

"It's just what I heard."

"Well, _I_ heard she's sweet on the Colonel."

"Colonel Smythe? Are you crazy?"

"It's just what I heard!"

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

In the sick bay, Doctor Cartwright, the Project's Chief Medical Officer, caught a group of nurses and clerical staff speculating about the newcomer's age.

"Can't be a day over eighteen!"

"Eighteen? Looks more like twenty to me."

"I heard from someone in Human Resources that she'll be sixteen next month…"

"Oh, he _wouldn't_!"

"Wouldn't he?"

"Not Captain Calavicci…"

The physician cleared his throat sternly, and the chatter died down. "Mrs. Calavicci is twenty-two," he said. "Now stop gossiping and get back to work!"

They waited until he was out of earshot, and then resumed their scandalmongering.

"Twenty-two."

"_Twenty-two_?"

"He's twice her age!"

"More than twice her age: he's turning fifty in a few days."

"No, I think he's already fifty…"

"What difference does that make? _Twenty-two_!"

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

The marines on sentry duty at the gate were harping on the Project's favorite subject also.

"Colonel Smythe just about exploded when he found out."

"What happened?"

"Nothing. H.R. had a permit ready for her, badge 'n everything. When she came to the door she wasn't wearing any shirt!"

" 'Course she wasn't! A guy Calavicci's age doesn't marry a babe like that so she can hang around fully clothed!"

"That's not fair!" the new lance corporal from Atlanta protested. "She's really nice—"

"I'll bet she is!"

"Come on: maybe he didn't marry her for the sex!"

"Yeah! Maybe it's part of the twelve step program. _My name is Albert, and I'm an alcoholic. _Step one: trade in the 'Vette for a motorcycle. Step two: bring on the arm candy!"

"Stop it! That's a lie!"

They quashed the indignant voice with a roar of laughter. "You've got a lot to learn, Carter."

"So does the new Mrs. Calavicci!"

"Mrs. Star Jock!"

"Mrs. Congressional Medal of Honor!"

"Mrs. P.O.W."

"No, no, it's Mrs. M.I.A."

"Mrs. Jack Daniels!"

"Yeah, that's the one!"

"That's it!"

"Here's to Mrs. Jack Daniels!"

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Oblivious to the rumors already circulating about her, the new Mrs. Calavicci spent her first day in her new home pacing the tiny suite, terrified of venturing beyond the door into the great unknown, and desperately anxious that she would somehow fail to please her new husband.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

In his modest office in Human Resources, Daniel Penvenen reflected quietly on the beauty of spreading a story to the winds. So much for the staff's good opinion of their intrepid leader. Calavicci's reputation was about to take a sharp nosedive.

Not unlike his A-4 had done that day over the Highlands.


	5. Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

Donna Eleese reached out to grab the arm of her lunch date. "There she is!" she hissed.

Doctor Adrian Thorgard was the head of the Chemistry Department. He was a pragmatic, good-natured man who had been working for the government for half a century. He was not nearly as judgmental as the average Project employee, and he was one of Donna's closest friends at Starbright.

He followed her gaze now towards the table in the back corner, where Captain Calavicci and his new wife—who was plenty young enough to be his daughter—were having what Donna imagined they must be regarding as a romantic meal. Thorgard looked at them with mild curiosity.

"Pretty little thing," he observed.

"_Pretty_? She's younger than I am!"

Thorgard chuckled. "When you get to be my age," he said, "everyone is younger than you are."

Donna shot him a look of annoyance that she knew he wouldn't resent, and took a shuffling step forward in the line. "I think it's disgusting," she continued. "You know why he married her, don't you?"

"I imagine he must feel something for her," he answered placidly.

Donna let out a harsh laugh. "I'll say he feels something for her!" she snapped irately. "And he's feeling it where he keeps his brain."

"That's a little unfair," Thorgard said, his tone constant. "Al is a very bright man…"

"He's a very _sick_ man," Donna retorted. She gestured surreptitiously in his direction. "Look at him. Look at _her_. How stupid is she?"

Thorgard smiled serenely. "My dear, must you always measure people by intelligence?" he queried.

Had any other man on the Project dared to call her "my dear", Donna would've torn a strip off of him at once. Adrian Thorgard was an exception. He wasn't trying to be condescending or manipulative. She truly was dear to him, in a sense. Instead she focused on the second clause. "In case you haven't noticed, we work at a top-secret government Project involving some of the most advanced science there is," she said. "Of course I measure the people who work here by their intelligence!"

"Egg salad or corned beef?" the young man behind the counter asked.

"Egg salad," Donna told him absently. "Doesn't it annoy you even a little bit when Calavicci goes around pretending to be smarter than he is?"

"I hadn't noticed him doing that," Thorgard said. "A little more of those vegetables, please, Peter. They look delightful."

"Well, you wouldn't," retorted Donna, rolling her eyes a little. "You're terminally forgiving."

"I've found him to be very knowledgable—"

"And you're a chemist! You should try him on quantum physics! Quarks are to protons as protons are to atoms… hah!"

"Well, aren't they? Fundamentally?" Thorgard asked.

"No! Quarks are—"

He shook his head. "I don't want the quantum physicist's explanation. That's too abstract for me. I want you to explain it in language a seventy-five-year-old chemist can understand."

Donna frowned. "Well… quarks are subatomic particles that determine to some degree the properties of the proton, in much the same way as the proton determines to some degree the properties of the nucleus—" She stopped, flushing with frustration as she realized what she had just said. "Well, okay," she said grudgingly. "That time he was right."

"He's very intelligent," Thorgard continued softly as they found a table a good distance away from the captain. "I think he just never had the chance to develop intellectually."

"If by that you mean he's got the brain of an oversexed fifteen-year-old…" Donna allowed.

"By that I mean that he has lacked many of the advantages that you and I have had," Thorgard said as he sat.

"Advantages?" she snorted. "My father ran out on us when I was eight. I had to pay my own way through school—working part-time as a waitress!—I've had to fight for every break I've ever had, and you think I have advantages?"

Thorgard shrugged. "Maybe. But what if you had spent as many years as the captain has defending your country and your way of life—"

"Way of life? That was a criminally unnecessary war—"

"That stole away eight years of Al's life," Thorgard pointed out.

"He was only missing for six."

"Yes, and he was shot down near the end of his second tour, wasn't he?"

Donna shook her head. "If you think I'm going to fawn over him because he had a little bad luck, you're sadly mistaken."

There was a silence. Thorgard looked at her thoughtfully. "This isn't about Captain Calavicci," he said. "This is more personal than that. Something's wrong, isn't it, Donna?"

"No," she said stoutly, biting into her sandwich.

"What is it?"

"Nothing."

His eyes softened still more. "Donna…"

She broke a little. "I just… I don't know what the point is anymore…" she said helplessly. "It all seems so… so ridiculous…"

"You're frustrated by the lack of progress," he murmured gently.

"Yes—no—I don't know. I hate… this isn't… it's not what I want to do with my life!" Angry at her own lack of control and determined not to succumb to the tears threatening to fall, Donna focused on something else.

That something else happened to be the table where Captain Calavicci sat, his forehead touching his trophy bride's as they giggled conspiratorially.

"Doesn't he realize what a fool he's making of himself?" she demanded.

Thorgard smiled sadly.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Al's laughter died away and he leaned a little farther forward to kiss the tip of Maxine's nose.

"She's beautiful _and_ she's funny," he said fondly.

"I'm serious!" she said, still giggling. "Ever since I was a little girl?"

"_Really_?"

"Really!" she avowed, sitting back and resuming work on her vegetables. A dreamy look came into her eyes. "When I was nine, Frank took me to the derby in Detroit—"

"Hang on," Al said. "Who's Frank?"

Maxine shrugged. "One of Mom's boyfriends," she said, as if it was of no moment. "Anyway, he took me to the derby one Saturday—I forget why. It was great! All these girls, and they moved so fast, and they were tough! They were incredible!"

Al frowned. "Explain it to me again: how does this game work?"

Maxine gave him a sweet, condescending smile. "There are two teams," she said.

"Two teams," he echoed, taking a mouthful of coffee.

"Five players on each team," Maxine went on. Al nodded to demonstrate his rapt attention. "Four _blockers_ and one _jammer_. The referee gives the signal, and the blockers start skating. All eight skate as a pack. The blocker in front of each team's group is called the _pivot_. She's in charge of the strategy."

Al nodded again, making a real effort to follow her explanation. "The referee makes another signal, and then the jammers can go. They have to catch up to the pack, get through it, and lap it from behind. When they go through again, they get points for every blocker from the other team that they pass. See?"

"A point for every blocker they pass. Yeah, I see," Al said. This wasn't strictly true, but he had a feeling that this would make more sense as she went on.

"Well, that's it," Maxine said. "Pretty neat, huh?"

Maybe not.

Al blinked in disbelief. "That's it?"

"What's it?" Maxine asked.

"That's all there is?"

"Yeah," she said simply.

He paused, still waiting for more. When nothing was forthcoming, he tried again. "Well, how do you win?"

Maxine laughed. "The team with the most points wins, of course!"

"Yeah, but… how's it end?"

"Oh! Well, either the time runs out, or the lead jammer calls the jam off."

Al gestured in bewilderment. "Calls the jam…"

"Yeah. The first jammer to get to the head of the pack the first time is the head jammer, and she can call it off any time she wants. See, so if her team's doing really well, she calls off the jam to keep the lead, and if they're getting crushed, she can stop things."

Her sweet young face was so eager and enthusiastic that Al just didn't have the heart to tell her that this was the stupidest thing he had ever heard. He smiled broadly, enjoying the way her cheeks flushed with pleasure at the attention.

"And that's what you really want to do?" he asked.

"We-ell…" Maxine hesitated. "It's a dream, I guess. It'll never happen."

"What's stopping you?" Al queried.

She laughed. "For a start, I can't skate!"

Huh? "Skate… oh, right! Roller-skate, yeah. Well, you can learn," he pointed out.

Maxine shook her head. "Not me," she said. "Believe me, I've tried."

"So try again," Al said.

She laughed self-consciously. "No, I don't think…"

Al decided to let her off the hook. "Anyway, there aren't many positions for roller derby queens at Starbright. What do you want to do?"

Maxine shrugged expansively and sighed a little. "I don't know," she said. "I haven't really thought about it. Do I have to work here?"

"Not if you don't want to," Al said. "I just thought it would be convenient. We're a long way from anywhere."

"Why _are_ we hidden in the middle of the desert?" Maxine asked. "Aren't you going to tell me what this project is all about?"

"To be honest," Al told her; "no, I hadn't planned to."

Her brow furrowed into a pout, and Al realized too late that that was the wrong thing to say. He reached for her long-fingered hand.

"Aw, Max, don't look like that," he said. "You gotta understand, this is a top secret project. You're the only civilian on site who doesn't work for us, and—"

"What about the Marines' families?" Maxine demanded. "Some of them live on site!"

Damn, she was sharp. She'd only been on the property for three days, and as far as Al knew she hadn't even been out of the suite except when he was with her. "Sure, some of them do, but they're all aboveground, and anyway they're _Marines_' families!" he added with a little scorn. "Nobody'd expect a Marine's wife to know anything. You have to understand, I'm just trying to keep you in a position where you won't get either of us into any trouble."

He could see the hurt in her beautiful blue eyes. "You don't trust me," she said softly.

"No, baby, I trust you! Of course I trust you! It's just that…Starbright's a very… you're very…you've only just…ah…" Al cast his eyes down. "I guess I should be straight with you, shouldn't I?" he muttered ashamedly.

"Yes, you should," Maxine said firmly.

"Okay… uh…" Al shook his head, not sure where to start. "What sciences did you take in highschool?"

"I took science," she said. Her tone had suddenly shifted a little, and there was evasion in her eyes.

"Yeah, but which ones? Chemistry? Physics?"

"We didn't have those at my school," Maxine said hastily.

Al laughed. "What are you talking about? Every high school has chemistry and physics!"

"Mine didn't," Maxine snapped. She smiled tersely and got to her feet. "You'd better get back to work, hadn't you?" she said sweetly. "Besides, I want to go take a nap. This staying up to all hours and fooling around is wearing me out."

Al reached up and took her shoulder, drawing her down for a nuzzling kiss. "Can't have that," he murmured. "I guess I'll see you tonight?"

She smiled seductively. "I'll be waiting," she promised.

Al watched as she walked off, disposed of her dishes, and left the mess hall. Al watched her go, and wondered why she felt the need to lie to him about the course offerings at her high school.


	6. Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

Al had a good feeling about this marriage. Maxine had been living with him at Starbright for two weeks now, and harmony reigned in the little suite on Sub-Level Three. They had taken a day during the first week to drive to Santa Fe for the purpose of tying up Max's affairs there. Al had absconded with one of the Project's truck-and-trailer ensembles in which to carry her possessions. Her landlord was easily paid off, though Al suspected that the owner of the florist's shop where his wife had been working (and from which she had taken off on holiday with next to no notice) would bear a grudge till the day he died. They had picked up Maxine's medical and dental records, left a forwarding address (the Department of Defense post office box in Phoenix to which all Starbright mail was delivered) with her friend, and closed up her bank account. Then they had driven back to the Project in convoy: Al in the truck, and Maxine following behind in her own car—a rusty old Buick that had begun life, much like its owner, in Michigan. It was a pretty good vehicle, actually, once you got past the undeniably unpleasant exterior. One of Maxine's previous boyfriends had done some overhauling of the innards, including the instillation of a killer engine.

With Maxine's belongings integrated into Al's three small rooms life was a little cramped, but the compensation was more than adequate. Still undecided about the offer of a job, Maxine divided her time between the gym and weight room on Sub-Level One, and devising cute little games that she and Al could play in the evenings. She was in this respect very imaginative, and Al found himself looking forward to each evening with almost obsessive eagerness. In her arms, it was so easy to forget the burdens and stresses of the day, and to drive back the images hovering ominously on the very cusp of memory. The only analgesia that was stronger came in a bottle—and it wasn't quite as sweet.

Another wonderful thing about Maxine was she was a heavy sleeper. He had not yet awakened her even once with his nightmares. Indeed, it seemed that the only way you could wake her up at all was to coax her into passion. As lovemaking worked much faster than scotch (though admittedly it didn't last as long) when it came to pulling your mind back to the present, this situation suited Al perfectly.

Indeed, the whole arrangement was so idyllic that he awoke one Saturday to realize that a month had past since his last visit to Celestina's.

Maxine wasn't an early riser, but she couldn't lie in late, either. She compromised by waking with her husband at seven, tearing headlong through the morning until she started to flag, and then taking a recharge nap that usually kept her going until Al was ready to quit. He wasn't sure how she did it—or how she had managed to hold down a job with such a bizarre circadian rhythm.

Even on weekends, she went through her morning aerobics as if it was a religious practice. When Al emerged from the bedroom on this particular day, he found her engaged in an energetic came of touch-your-toes, swinging her right fingers to her left foot, and then the left to the right. He watched her for a while: the way her royal blue leotard followed every curve and each subtle movement of her beautiful body. Only when desire began to infiltrate his consciousness and threaten to undermine his mission did he speak.

"Good morning, beautiful," he said.

"Morning!" she called out, not even missing a beat in her workout. "You're up early."

"Maybe a little," Al allowed. "I'm going into town."

Her face lit up as she started some shoulder rolls. "Phoenix?" she asked.

"Wickenburg."

"Oh." Her face fell. The message was clear: _boring_.

"I'm visiting some friends," Al went on. "You've heard me talk about Stevie and Celestina. If you want to come…"

Maxine shifted into another move, jerking her torso from side to side that made her trim hips shudder provocatively. Al upbraided himself for the graphic thoughts infiltrating his mind at the sight. He had other things to do, and he couldn't get off track.

"How long will we be there?" she asked.

"All day," Al admitted.

There was a silence as Maxine concluded her final rep and swerved to switch off the tape deck. She picked up her towel and began to dab at her face. "You want me to come?" she asked.

"I want you to do whatever you want," Al assured her.

Only she wasn't interested in platitudes, however sincere. Her eyes narrowed. "No, guy's never mean that," she said vehemently. "Either you're 'offering' because you think you have to, but really you don't want me around—"

"Of course I want you around!" Al protested.

Maxine kept talking right over him. "—or you want me to come, and you'll be mad if I don't, but you don't want it to look like you're trying to force me into something I don't want to do!"

"I'm not trying to force you into anything," Al said defensively.

"Sure you aren't!" she cried. "God, you know Matt was exactly the same way? Always asking what you want, just so he could trap you. If you're not psychic, watch out!"

"Hang on," Al said, suddenly lost in this irrational tangent. "Hang on, who's Matt?"

Maxine shrugged. "Boyfriend," she said. "While I was working in Atlantic City."

Al frowned a little. "You worked in Atlantic City?" he asked.

"Yeah, for about six months," Maxine said. "So what?"

She walked to the kitchenette and took out a tray of ice cubes. Al followed her and brought down two glasses. "You said you moved to L.A. four years ago…" he said, thinking back to motel-room conversations—just about his only source of information on his new bride.

"Yeah." Maxine focused intently on twisting the tray to loosen its contents.

"When you turned eighteen," Al continued. "Then after ten months you moved to 'Frisco—but you didn't like it and you were in Portland a couple months after your nineteenth birthday… then six months later Colorado Springs. You were a blackjack dealer in Reno before you moved to Santa Fe."

"Yeah, you've got it," Maxine murmured. She was setting ice cubes in the glasses and studiously avoiding his eyes.

Al watched her carefully as he took down a bottle of whiskey and started to fill the near tumbler. "So when were you working in Atlantic City?" he asked.

A faint flush appeared on her cheekbones and she turned away, filling her cup from the tap. "You're starting the party early," she observed cagily.

"Aw, don't _you_ start!" Al groaned. "Sooner or later every woman gets going about that!"

"Well," Maxine said, pausing to drain half her water; "most people don't drink first thing in the morning."

"What're you doing, then?" Al asked, gesturing at her glass while he took a soothing, bracing swallow from his own.

She shot him a glance of annoyance. "That's not the same thing," she said sullenly.

"Well, _I_ don't see a difference," Al groused stubbornly. His hands were already steadying and the foggy feeling was fading from his head.

"Okay," Maxine whispered, turning back to the sink and refilling her glass. Al drained his, and then set it down so that he could hug her from behind. He raised himself on his toes to kiss her ear.

"C'mon, baby," he whispered. "Come with me. Celestina would love to meet you, I know it."

She seemed to consider this, stiff and cool beneath his grasp. Then she put down her cup and whirled in his arms, smiling fondly. "Okay," she said, planting a brief, sweet kiss on his lips. "Just lemme shower."

Al grinned. "You bet," he said happily, kissing her in return before he let her slip free. She rounded the corner, and he paused, contemplating whether to leave her her privacy or not. Deciding on the latter, he shrugged and followed her, halting a little ways from the bathroom door as she began to peel off her leotards.

"We taking your bike?" Maxine asked, working her arms free but leaving the scoop neck of her garment around her chest. She removed her terrycloth sweatband and shook her head so that her golden hair danced.

"No, I thought we'd take your car and treat for supper," Al said, watching as she turned her back and slid the bodysuit down around her hips. He eyed the dimples in the small of her back. "I ever tell you you're sensational?"

She looked over her shoulder, turning just far enough to tease him. "Once or twice," she said.

"Well, you are," Al said.

"Are what?" Maxine bent from the waist and began to untie her sneakers.

"Sensational," Al supplied. "Gorgeous, beautiful."

She laughed dismissively, but he knew she loved it. For some reason she could never hear his opinion of her looks often enough. She slid the leotard and leggings down to her feet, removed her socks and stretched luxuriously, like a cat in the sun. Al took two steps forward. "Beautiful," he repeated.

She turned around, her face lit up in a playful smile. "You're not exactly hard on the eyes yourself," she said, reaching out and pressing her index finger against his nose. Then before he could take any action, she swung into the bathroom and closed the door. Within seconds, he could hear the water running. He chuckled happily. What a woman.

_MWMWMWMMWMWMWMWWMWMWMWMWMWM_

When he had come to Arizona two years ago to train for the position of Starbright Project Administrator, Al had left some unpleasant situations behind in New Jersey. Foremost among them had been his third marriage. It wasn't that he didn't like Ruthie—even now she was more a friend than an ex-wife. It was just that they hadn't really been meant for each other. In those last weeks there had been things going on that Al didn't even really want to think about… in any case, the divorce had come out on the costly side—not as bad as the split from the Hungarian or the never-ending legal fees that the eight-month custody battle over his Yorkshire terrier had cost him, but still pricey enough to hurt.

This had put a crimp in his plan to find lodgings off of Project land. Unable to stand living in an institutional setting after far too long in the base housing at Lakehurst, Al had been desperate for more liberty. He had also been pretty well broke. The solution, therefore, was to rent a trailer. It had all the advantages of isolation that a house afforded, and it had rented for six hundred a month. At the time Al had almost been ashamed of his shabby, pragmatic quarters, but it didn't take him long to find the silver lining in that particular cloud.

Up the street from the mobile home he had occupied lived a mother and child: Celestina and Esteban Penja. Impoverished and struggling to raise her Downs syndrome son alone, Celestina was nevertheless one of the most loving and fiercely loyal people Al had ever had the fortune to meet. He didn't know what this angel in a shabby housedress saw in him, but she always made him welcome, and she had taken his side in a war Al wished with all his heart he could have kept her out of.

Her brother-in-law, an itinerant bricklayer who traveled from job to job in much the way Al's own father had, had found work in Wickenburg after Stevie had been diagnosed with leukemia. Al had liked the guy almost off the bat, mostly because of his dedication to his nephew, and he had offered him the Calavicci family sofa in place of his customary bed in the back of his station wagon. Everything had seemed to be just about ideal, except for one tiny detail.

At some point during the hectic months when Al had been making up for days missed to take Stevie in for chemo by working through three nights a week at the Project, Juan Penja and Al's fourth wife had struck up an affair. It wasn't that Al could blame either of them. After all, he'd had the odd affair with a married woman himself. As for Sharon, he had never really been there for her, and had almost certainly deserved to have her cheat on him. Nevertheless, the memory of the night he had come home—in rough shape after a few days of a nasty head cold and a wipe-out on the motorcycle—to find her in bed with the muscular Mexican had left its mark. The rage, the humiliation, and the strange, unidentifiable pain were not quite memories, even now. He couldn't say why, but it hurt that Sharon had rejected him. Knowing he deserved it didn't make it any easier to bear.

In any case, Celestina had taken Al's side over that of her brother-in-law, despite the fact that he was her only link to her deported husband. It made Al almost sick with guilt when he thought about that, so he tried not to.

He didn't tell any of this to Maxine as they drove into the small desert city. Instead, he focused on Stevie's brush with cancer. That, at least, was a story with a happy ending.

Stevie was still asleep when they arrived, but as Al had predicted Celestina took instantly to Maxine. Anyone her beloved Captain Calavicci liked had all the character references they needed. The young mother had none of the snide half-jokes that so many of Al's buddies at the Project were wont to make about the age gap. She attached nothing but the purest of motives to the union, accepting Max at once as a member of her small circle of friends.

Stevie woke shortly after eleven, reluctantly coming back from the land of dreams. Reluctantly, at least, until he saw who had come visiting.

"Mithta Al! Mithta Al!" he cried, hopping off of the shelf bed that he shared with his mother. He tottered awkwardly around Maxine to where Al sat on one of the three rickety aluminum chairs that, along with the small table, were the only other articles of furniture in the tiny domed camp trailer. As an antidote to the sweltering summer heat, he had gone to bed wearing only a pair of shabby, graying briefs, but with childish abandon he seemed not even to notice his state of undress as he scrambled into Al's lap.

"Hey, buddy!" Al exclaimed happily, reciprocating the bear hug that the boy meted out and wondering how he was worthy of this abounding, unconditional acceptance. The answer was that he _wasn't_, really. He had just, somehow, wound up in the path of this angel-child, and been enveloped, undeserving as he was, by this enormous, innocent heart.

"Where Chethter?" the child asked, looking around.

Al's hold tightened unconsciously as he reacted to the pain spidaring through his chest. He forced a smile. "Chester's living with another family now," he said.

"Oh." Stevie's face fell briefly. He loved the little dog, who had been awarded to Sharon after an eight-month custody battle, and was now living in Rhode Island with her nephew. Al hated to admit it, but he missed the terrier terribly himself, and the fact that Stevie was hurting made the loss harder to bear.

Then the child smiled and hopped off of Al's knee, hurrying back to the bed. He climbed up, his short legs a little clumsy, and dug around amid the faded blankets. With a little laugh of triumph, he found what he was looking for and brought it back to Al.

"Thee?" he said happily. "My Chethter."

Al smiled. It was the stuffed dog he had bought for the child when Stevie was hospitalized following the appendectomy that had led to his early cancer diagnosis. "That's right, it is," he said.

"Esteban, time to get dressed," Celestina said, taking some play clothes from one of the drawers beneath the bed. Al reached out to take them, and helped Stevie maneuver his arms into the sleeves of the t-shirt. He had to return to the floor before he could don his shorts, but it wasn't long before he was back in Al's lap, chattering happily.

Through all this, Maxine had been sitting quietly, her hands in her lap, as if she was unsure of her place in this situation. Al glanced up from Stevie's eulogy about his stuffed dog's eyes, and realized the discomfiture his new wife was suffering. He tried to smile at her, but she was looking away. It occurred to him that she had mentioned she had never had much experience with children.

"Stevie," Al said, turning the child a little. "Stevie, this is Maxine."

At the sound of her name, Max looked up. "Hi, Stevie," she said, putting on a smile that did not quite reach her eyes.

Stevie wriggled a little, letting the fingers of his right hand slip into his mouth as he stared wide-eyed at the stranger.

Celestina left the sink, where she had been washing vegetables, and ruffled her son's hair lovingly. It was a habit that she had acquired after his head of curls had started to grow back, as if the tactile sensation was a tangible reminder that he was no longer fighting for his life. "Esteban, what do you say to Señora Calavicci?" she asked.

Stevie's eyes grew still more enormous, and his lips moved noiselessly around his hand. Al frowned in puzzlement: he had never shown such shyness before, neither when Al had met him the first time, nor when he had first met Sharon. Of course, both times Chester had been there to break the ice…

Celestina gently but firmly pressed Stevie's arm down so that the fingers popped out of his mouth. "Say hello, Esteban," she prompted.

Stevie squirmed, pushing himself closer against Al's chest. "Hi, lady," he mumbled bashfully.

Al laughed a little and rested his cheek against the dome of the boy's head. "Atta boy," he applauded.

"How… how old are you, Stevie?" Maxine asked.

"So many," Stevie said, holding out both hands with palms extended.

"Wow!" Maxine enthused with far too much sugar in her voice. "You're a big boy!"

"Yup, yup," Stevie said. "Big boy."

Al felt a tiny pang of sadness that he tried to cover up in the only way he could: with affected gaiety. "Hey, buddy!" he said happily. "You want to work on your letters?"

He had been trying to teach Stevie the alphabet, hoping that it might be possible to teach him to read. So far, no one at his school had had any luck with that. Al wasn't sure why he thought he might be able to do something trained professionals couldn't, but there had to be some merit in one-on-one attention, right? If only Stevie could learn how to read, he might have a chance at a normal life…

"Okay…" Stevie said with the faintest hint of reluctance. He got off of Al's lap and went to the other end of the trailer, opening one of the lower cupboards and taking out a tray of colored magnetic letters. He gave them to Al and climbed back onto his knee.

"Which letter is this?" Al asked, starting with an easy one.

" 'E'!" the boy crowed. " 'E' for Ethteban!"

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

"You know, he really is ten," Al said to Maxine as they sat in the car, preparing to head back to the Project. "It's just, Celestina hasn't always had work, and the chemo really set him back, and—"

Maxine shifted a little, clearly uncomfortable. "He doesn't act like he's ten," she said softly. "He acts more like he's…"

"Four or five," Al said, nodding. "He probably…" His throat closed. He couldn't say it. He didn't want to say it. He shouldn't have to.

"He probably won't get much smarter," Maxine murmured, staring at her hands.

Something snapped, and old hurts began to surface. "Who cares? He's a great little guy! He's got a heart that could—"

Maxine had shrunk away against the passenger door. Al looked at the alarm in her eyes, and wilted, rubbing his eyes and shaking his head. Silence fell.

At last, Maxine spoke.

"So I guess I'm a lady, huh?" she said timidly.

Al looked up in surprise, and then realized she was referring to the way Stevie had addressed her all day. He laughed a little, and she started to giggle, sliding along the seat towards him. Al wrapped an arm around her slender shoulders and pulled her into an affectionate embrace.

"Course you are," he said, kissing her hair. "You're my lady, and I'm your knight in paper armor."

Maxine frowned. "Paper armor would be useless," she teased.

"Uh-huh," Al said, putting the car into gear and pulling away into the darkness.


	7. Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

Maxine was lying on her stomach on the crisply-made bed, chin on her clasped hand. She was watching as Al dressed, swinging her legwarmer-swathed calves so that her raised feet pumped to and fro over her thighs.

"Why do you always wear that uniform?" she asked. "Doesn't it get boring?"

Al looked at her quizzically, his left sleeve halfway up his arm. Then he laughed. "Of course it's boring!" he said. "It's a uniform."

"But the same clothes every day?" Maxine said, wrinkling her charming nose in disgust.

"I don't wear the same clothes every day!" Al said with more vehemence than he meant to. "I wear a fresh uniform every time," he added, trying to back off and make her think that it was all a joke.

"Well, it _looks_ the same," Maxine said. "Why don't you wear something else?"

Al shook his head fondly, trying to banish the memories of when he _had_ worn the same tattered, unwashed clothing every day, or else nothing at all. The recollections of savagery and wretchedness were hard to ignore, but he tried with all his might to focus on Maxine's lovely face and the seductive curve of her hip. "Kiddo, I'm in the Navy. As in military. As in protocol and professionalism and uniforms. I don't have a choice: the outfit comes with the job."

"But this isn't a military base, is it?" Maxine propped herself up on her elbows and tilted her head from side to side.

"No. No, it's not." God bless her and her silly questions. It was much easier to focus on reality when you were keeping up a constant banter. Al had awakened four times in the night, each time plagued by dreams that for some reason the whiskey just wasn't banishing anymore.

"So why do you have to wear a uniform?" Max challenged.

"Because I'm the commanding officer here, and I have to set an example." Al stepped into his perfectly pressed pants, and caught himself consciously wondering at the feel of clean cloth against his legs. Damn it, God _damn _it.

Like a tawny cat in her yellow leggings and tied-up blouse, Maxine crept to the foot of the bed, sitting up and sliding her left leg over the edge as she tucked the right under her trim bottom. "There aren't _that_ many Navy guys. I've only seen maybe twenty, and most of them are up on the planes. Those aren't uniforms that they wear, are they?"

"No, they're Project flight suits," Al said, knowing she was referring to the bright orange coveralls the men wore—guaranteed to make them easier to spot if they happened to go down in the desert.

"And they're colorful and fun," Maxine added. "Why _couldn't_ you and the other ones who work inside wear normal clothes? I mean, the uniform's pretty sexy, but it doesn't look as good as your normal clothes. Besides, don't you wish that you could wear long sleeves?"

Al frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked, a sinking feeling gripping his stomach.

"Well…" She reached out and took his right hand in hers. With her left index finger she began to trace the broad bracelet of scar tissue encircling his wrist. Next to the healthy olive of his natural skin, it was almost imperceptible—but not quite. Certainly it was easy enough to feel. Maxine's fingertip moved along his ulna to follow the narrow hairless stripes running up, down and around his forearm. Al felt his elbow spasm, and he yanked his arm away as the phantom ropes began to bit into his flesh.

"Don't!" he cried, clutching his arms to his chest. A wave of panic seized him, and he found his left hand scrabbling to remove the restraints, even though intellectually he knew there was nothing there. Trying to expunge his agitation through action, he removed his watch from his left wrist, and buried it in his pocket. He tried to stop the shaking that was starting to overtake him. It wasn't fair! He'd already had his morning refreshment: he shouldn't be like this now! "Don't do that!" he repeated hoarsely.

"Okay…" Maxine said meekly. She was staring at him with her blue eyes widening in fright and dismay. "Al, honey, what did I—"

"Nothing," he choked out, his left hand coursing up and down his right forearm again. "Nothing at all."

He fled the room, trying to calm himself. This was ridiculous. There was nothing on his arms. Nothing. There were no restraints, and yet he could feel them. Each scar corresponded to a rope that had bound him, or a whip that had struck him. There were burns, insect bites that had become infected, marks of surgeries to correct twisted fingers, boils that had turned into festering sores too deep to heal properly, and even, on the inside of the right elbow, a gnarled knot of tissue where a deep gouge had been deliberately taken with a carefully honed knife.

Al stumbled against the kitchen sink and ran cold water over his forearms, trying to freeze or scrub away the sensation. He fought to take deep, calming breaths, but instead he was gasping raggedly. Icy sweat began to trickle down the back of his neck, worsening the convulsions running down his back. His chest felt tight and his head was reeling. He bent low over the sink and laved his face with handful after handful of the chilling fluid.

Suddenly he froze, hands still in the water and mouth and nose dripping over the sink. There was someone behind him. Oh, God, there was someone behind him! With a fresh thrill of panic Al tried to figure out what that meant. What had he done this time? Was he not supposed to be down here, washing? Hadn't they given him permission? Behind him, ten feet back and four or five to the left, someone was watching him. He could hear the person's strained breathing. It betrayed haste or fury. Al didn't move. He didn't dare to move. He hadn't tried to run—had he? What had he done? Did the watcher have a whip? Should he run? Should he try to protect his head? Oh, God, what had he done this time?

"Al? Al, honey?" Maxine's timorous voice filtered through the flashback, to some degree dispersing the demons. "Al, what's the matter?"

He moved his lips, but no sound came out. Instinctually, he splashed his face again, and cupped his hands to collect relief for his throat. He swallowed, lost for a moment in the glorious sensation of cold, clean water washing over his tongue and down into his gullet. "Nothing," he croaked.

There was silence. Al reached out and turned off the tap, then shook his hands in the sink and reached for a tea towel. He dried his skin: face, then arms. When this was done he turned towards the cupboard full of cups.

"Al, please tell me what's wrong," Maxine implored. He could see her vaguely out of the corner of his eye: long legs and golden hair and anxious eyes.

"Nothing's wrong," he said, leaning his head against the door of the liquor cupboard as he poured a whiskey—his second since the alarm had gone off today. He raised the water tumbler full of alcohol to his lips. His hand was shaking so badly that the glass rattled against his teeth. One long swallow warmed him again. Another and his fingers grew steadier. A third, and he trusted himself to string more than two words together. "Everything's just fine, kiddo. Don't worry about me."

He took another long, merciful swallow, closing his eyes and sighing in piteous relief when he found that the image of bamboo bars was not emblazoned on the inside of his eyelids. The glass found its way back to his lips, and this time he emptied it. His hand reached for the bottle. Just a little more. Couldn't afford to melt down like this while he was working.

"Al…" Maxine's voice broke. "Al, you're scaring me. Please, tell me what's wrong."

Al let the whiskey caress his tongue. Then he put away the bottle and closed the cupboard. After another mouthful from the still almost full vessel in his hand, he was able to turn to her, smiling paternally. "Aw, Maxie, it's nothing," he cooed, reaching out to pet her chiseled cheek. "You just hit a nerve, that's all."

"What nerve?" she asked, her eyes still large and fretful.

Al shrugged, and at once loved and loathed the way the lie came so easily to his lips. "It's just on the inside of my wrist," he said. "Right between the two big tendons. If you press it the wrong way my whole arm starts on fire."

"Oh!" Maxine exclaimed. "Oh, you mean a _real _nerve! I thought…"

She thought she had triggered some kind of weird psychological episode, Al reflected morosely. Well, yeah, she had, but there was no way in hell he was going to admit it. Better if she didn't know. He took another long swallow of whiskey, and pointed at his right wrist. "Right there," he said. "Just below the joint."

Maxine took his hand in both of hers and kissed the palm. Then she stroked his hair. "I'm sorry," she said humbly. "I'll be more careful now."

"Yeah, I know you will," Al said, kissing her gently. "Now, I really have to go to work."

Another frown furrowed her pretty face. "What about breakfast?" she asked.

Al shrugged. "I'm not hungry honey. Sorry."

She cast her eyes downward. "I wanted to go into Phoenix today," she said. "If that's okay?"

He chuckled. "You're my wife, not my daughter. You've got a car: go wherever you want."

"I wanted to get some groceries," Maxine continued. "I can't stand having an empty fridge. It makes me feel broke."

Al drained his glass and touched his knuckle to the tip of her nose. "Knock yourself out, beautiful," he said.

Then, once again himself, he strode out of the suite to take on the day.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

As usual, Al was the first person to arrive at the Administration wing. The whiskey was _finally_ doing its job, and he was starting to feel a bit more optimistic. He unlocked his office and settled at his desk, picking up the stack of surplus paperwork that he hadn't quite got to the previous week.

At eight-thirty there was a knock at the door. After receiving Al's invitation, Eulalie Pharris entered. She was a good-looking lady in her mid-thirties, and one of the most capable people Al had ever known. He secretly suggested that if he and Prysock, the Project's Deputy Administrator and Al's second-in-command, vanished off the face of the Earth tomorrow, Eulalie would be more than capable of keeping Starbright running without even a hiccough.

"Morning, Eulie!" he said cheerfully.

She approached the desk, her hands full of the first installment of the morning's work. "Good morning, Captain. How was your weekend?"

"Just lovely!" Al declared blithely. "How 'bout yours?"

"Fine," she said. "How's Mrs. Calavicci?"

"Oh, she's settling in," Al said, fighting to keep his smile on his face. A disturbing thought had just crossed his mind, and he tried not to watch Eulalie's eyes…

"I'm glad," the secretary said. She set down her burden with a small, rueful laugh. "Sorry," she said. "It's going to be a busy week."

"Ah, well, we can handle it. Can't we?" Al asked.

"You bet!" she said with another radiant smile. Then she turned and left the room.

The moment she was gone, Al pressed his hand to his brow and let the rising nausea show on his face. Was it just his imagination, or had Eulalie been staring at his arms through the whole exchange?

She had, he knew she had. He stared at the faint marks, almost but not quite invisible. Eulalie had been staring at them: he was sure of it now. How many had she seen? What had she thought of them? Would she realize what they meant? Would she know where they had come from? Did she know everything already? Who would she tell?

He took his silver flask, a Christmas gift from his last wife, out of his back pocket and took a long draught from it. This was silly, he told himself. He needed to quit being so paranoid.

But it wasn't paranoia if it was true.

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Phillip Prysock was an MBA with a Masters in Sociology. He was forty-six years old and had been managing complex organizations since his years as the Student Body President of his high school in rural Montana. Hospitals, petroleum corporations and automotive companies—he had done his time with them all. The difficulty with the private sector, however, was that nepotism and favoritism made it very difficult to advance. Phillip was a keenly ambitions man, and if there was one thing he couldn't stand it was watching younger, less experienced and less qualified men advancing before him just because they were dating the CEO's daughter.

The natural solution had been to leave the private sector entirely and to enter the employ of the United States Government. Starbright was the third top-secret Project he had been working on, and he had found himself moving through the system quite nicely until that point. The problem was that for some reason the Committee thought that the Project Administrator and the Department of Defense observer should be one in the same. This meant that Phillip, though the most experienced manager on the Project, had to play second fiddle to Captain Calavicci.

Though undeniably likeable enough as a person, Calavicci was an inept leader in too many ways to count. He was too casual, particularly for a Naval officer, and he had a poor work ethic. Over the last year his hours had been sporadic and often nocturnal, as he filled his days with God only knew what. Following his divorce and resultant move into Starbright's staff quarters, he had taken to sleeping with any female member of staff who would get within ten feet of him. That was incredibly inappropriate, even if most of the staff were mature, university-educated women perfectly capable of rebuffing his advances if they wished to.

The latest insult to Starbright was Calavicci's new wife. To go away on a two week vacation with virtually no notice, and then return with a twenty-two-year-old Las Vegas bride would have been bad enough if done by a young clerk. Perpetrated as it was by the fifty-year-old Project Administrator, it was absolutely disgraceful. Calavicci was a discredit to Starbright and to the whole administrative staff. It infuriated Phillip that their department was the laughingstock of the Project just because of Calavicci's lack of discretion.

Nevertheless, as much as he might resent Calavicci's poor behavior and the fact that he had been brought in as a ringer to take a position that in any other organization should have gone to MacArthur's deputy, Phillip would not let personal feelings interfere with his work. He was always courteous and supportive, and between himself and Calavicci's secretary, he knew they would keep Starbright running no matter what.

There were, of course, certain forms that only the Project Administrator could sign. That was what brought Phillip out of his own office and across the reception area to his superior's on this particular Monday afternoon.

He knocked, but there was no response. This wasn't unusual. Captain Calavicci was notorious for losing himself in his work—when he actually _sat down_ to work. Phillip knocked again.

"C'min," a gravelly voice slurred.

Phillip opened the door. The uniformed man behind the desk suddenly straightened in his chair. "Phil!" he said. He dropped his pen and hid both hands in his lap. There was a silence.

"Al," Phillip said politely.

The captain kept his hands under the desk. "What can I do for you?"

Phillip's eyes narrowed as his nose picked up a strange scent. Alcohol?

"I need your signature on the requisition form for the new x-ray camera," he said, keeping his voice low and professional as he took in the scene. The captain had obviously been engrossed in his paperwork, but there was an unmistakable smell of whiskey in the air, and the man's eyes were red and bloodshot.

"Remind me again," Calavicci said; "why does the sick bay need an x-ray camera?"

Phillip stared at him in disbelief. "It's for the lab rats on Sub-Level Five," he said, setting the form in front of the older man.

"Oh. Right. Right." He began to raise one hand as if to hold his head, but he thought better of it and shot it back under his desk. "Just leave it here, and I'll look it over," he said.

"I'd really prefer if you signed it now," Phillip said honestly. "That way I can send it off today."

Calavicci shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Sure, okay," he said. "Say, you ever had a good look at an A-4?"

"At a what?"

"An A-4 Skyhawk." Phillip's blank look must have been interpreted correctly, because Calavicci explained. "It's a fighter plane."

"Oh. I can't say that I have," Phillip admitted.

"I've got one on the shelf there, next to the annual reports," Calavicci said, nodding at an intricate model plane. "Take a look."

"All…right…" Phillip said, not sure why this was so important. As he turned he thought he caught a very paranoid look flitting through Calavicci's eyes. "Very nice," he commented, studying the aircraft with inexpert eyes.

"Isn't it, though?" Calavicci said. "All done. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"What?" Phillip turned. The papers were signed and Calavicci's hands were back in his lap. "Oh, yes, I'm sure. Goodnight, Al."

"Goodnight, Phil."

Phillip closed the door and left the papers with Eulalie for faxing to Washington. Then he went back into his room, his mind fixated with what he had seen in Calavicci's office.

Drinking on the job? _That _was new…

But Starbright came first, and if that meant he had to keep Calavicci's habit under wraps, so be it. Besides, his boss was really a nice guy. A terrible administrator, but a nice guy. It wouldn't be fair to blow the whistle on him over this. After all, it had only happened once.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Al was ravenous, but he couldn't bear the thought of going to the cafeteria. They would stare. They would all stare. Everyone had been looking at his arms, all day. God, Maxine was right: he had to start wearing long sleeves! Tomorrow. Tomorrow, a new and relaxed dress code.

His stomach snarled. He'd skipped breakfast and worked through lunch, and despite the little nips of liquid courage here and there, he was absolutely starving. He was also too ashamed to venture out into such a crowded place, where everyone would stare… everyone would know… Even though he knew it meant sacrificing his last chance at food today, Al pressed the button that would take him to Sub-Level Three and the privacy of his quarters.

He fumbled with the key, and somehow slipped inside. His brain was muddled and he needed a drink… there were going to be nightmares tonight, he knew it, and he needed a drink…

A tiny, evil voice upbraided him, saying that he had been drinking all day and he had to slow down. He ignored it and stumbled through to the kitchen. It was the only think that would make the hurt go away. The only thing that would cover up the shame he had been fighting all day. The only thing that would make him forget how hungry he was.

Maxine was standing by the little stove. Al was dimly aware of her presence as he groped single-mindedly for the liquor cupboard.

"Al?"

He took out the bourbon. He'd been drinking whiskey all day, and it was starting to taste like toothpaste.

"Al?"

A glass. The stopper.

"_Al_?"

And amber fire soothing his empty stomach and taking the edge off of the anxiety that had been plaguing him all day. He smiled and turned to face her. "Max," he said.

Her lips puckered a little in a pout of concern. "You okay?" she asked.

"Fine," he said suavely, taking her by the waist and kissing her.

"I made supper," she said.

"Mmm. You what?" His lips found her earlobe. Then her neck.

"Supper. I made supper." Maxine was stroking his hair. "Meatloaf and potatoes. Only the meatloaf's been in a bit too long, and I think it's kind of dry, and the potatoes are kinda overdone, too, and I forgot to get sour cream…"

Everything she said about the meal was true, but Al didn't care. Having come in expecting to go to bed hungry, he fell on the simple meal with true relish. It took the edge off of his inebriated stupor, and he managed to rouse himself sufficiently to make it plain to Maxine how much he appreciated her initiative.

He fell asleep with his head pillowed on her soft bosom, reflecting that no day was _all_ bad.


	8. Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

It hurts! It hurts so much!

Bruised ribs protesting the effort of breathing. Hot tears coursing from the blackened eye and its pain-filled twin.

There is shouting: harsh angry voices. The ringing ears can't understand all of what isbeing said, but the essence isclear enough. Spindly arms grab thin legs, and the aching body tries to press itself further into the dark corner. Maybe, maybe they won't notice someone so small. Maybe they won't come back in here…

Wishes never come true. Thunderous footsteps make the floor shake, and the tormented heart begins to beat still faster, thundering with terror. The arms fly up to protect the sore head, and a plaintive voice screams, thin and hoarse with panic: "No, don't hit me! Please! I'll be good! I'll be good! Please, please, don't hit me again! Please don't hit me!"

Of course, that doesn't stop the heavy fist from coming down upon the little blonde head.

_MWMWMWMMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Maxine sat up, panting frantically. The darkness seemed to press in around her as she tried to slow her thundering pulse. Next to her, Al was snoring softly, and she used that fact as an anchor to ease herself back onto the pillow. She crept as close to him as she dared, not wanting to wake him. Her hand reached out to touch his chest, and he mumbled something unintelligible. She withdrew anxiously. She didn't want to wake him up. If he knew she had stupid nightmares… well, she just didn't want him to know.

Luckily Al was a heavy sleeper, she thought as she shivered under the blankets. Trent, the guy she'd lived with when she first moved out on her own, had been way too easy to wake up. Tears that had nothing to do with the bad dream began to prickle in the corners of Maxine's eyes as she remembered how he used to tease her. He had seemed like such a great guy: big and strong and sexy, with a hot car and his own apartment. At nineteen he was superbly grown up, at least from her perspective. She had thought he was the perfect boyfriend, but he had turned out to be really cruel. Not that he ever hurt her, but he was so mean and petty, and he loved to tease her until she was so upset and humiliated that she couldn't even stand to spend the rest of the night in bed. He'd call her stupid, juvenile names like "cry-baby" and "chicken", and he'd make fun of her and call her a dumb little kid 'cause only little kids had "scary" dreams.

She had had some guys who tried to calm her down with a couple good smacks, but if course that had only made it worse. Jeremy had been nicest about it: hugging her and petting her until the fear began to fade. After five or six episodes, though, he started to think they were loony, and hinted she should see a shrink. Not long after that he had dumped her. After Jeremy, she'd gotten better at keeping the screams inside.

Right now, she wished she hadn't got so good at it. She'd feel better if Al were awake. She was sure _he_ wouldn't hit her to shut her up. Maybe he'd want to cuddle. Maybe they could play a game to distract her. Sometimes she would wake up in mounting pleasure, because Al was kissing and touching her as she slept. Then they would make love, and she would feel like a woman from an ancient legend, visited mysteriously and unexpectedly by a god in the middle of the night. So romantic!

That thought pleased her, and she drew nearer to Al's slumbering body. He had called her a goddess the first time they had slept together. Aphrodite: goddess of love and beauty. Maxine shivered. She didn't feel beautiful right now. She felt young and unwieldy and awkward. Stupid. Next to her, Al snorted a little.

" 'Eth…" he murmured.

Maxine rested her cheek against his arm. The bump where a band of scar tissue encircled his bicep made her shiver. He was covered—absolutely _covered_ in scars, and she didn't know why. He looked like he had been stitched together from hundreds of little pieces of skin. She really meant to ask about them, but somehow she had never quite worked up the courage. She just couldn't figure out what could possibly cause marks like that, and that made her nervous, because it was probably something really obvious, and she hated it when she came out of a conversation looking like an idiot. That happened way too often.

Al spoke in his sleep again, but still Maxine couldn't quite understand what he was saying. She pressed her leg against his, wishing he would wake up and hold her. Al didn't think she was an idiot. He thought she was beautiful. Wonderful. He had taken two helpings of her meatloaf, even though it had cooked too long. Mom had said her meatloaf tasted like cardboard, and Mrs. Goudreau, the ninth grade home economics teacher, had called her the worst cook in the class, but Al had seemed to like her supper just fine! He had even thanked her and told her it was the best thing he had eaten all day. She believed him, too, because he had said it with so much conviction—and because she knew he wouldn't lie to her.

This was no good, she thought. If she stayed in bed for much longer, she would give in to the temptation to wake him up. It would be so selfish to rouse him just because she was scared and lonely. Then she really would be acting like a dumb little kid. She slipped carefully out from under the covers and crept to the bureau. A little rummaging brought out her lavender-colored tracksuit, and she moved into the other room to dress.

A change of scenery would help her feel better. She knew that. Maybe a good, brisk walk would tire her would, too, and allow her to sleep through the rest of the night.

She zipped up the front of her hooded sweater, wondering if maybe she should go back into the bedroom for undergarments. She decided against it, glancing at the clock. It was two-thirty in the morning. No one would know or care. She went to the front closet and found a pair of purple PVC thongs. She slid her bare feet into them and picked up her room key. Then she slipped out into the hallway, taking care to close the door behind her.

Maxine had spent some time wandering the Project before, but only during the day when the corridors were bustling with activity. Al had even given her a brief tour two Sundays ago, but of course he hadn't shown her everything.

The elevator panels at Starbright were weird. Al had tried to explain the system: it had something to do with an inverse Greek alphabet. That made no sense to Maxine. She preferred to memorize the seven symbols she needed to know—one for each of the six Sub-Levels, and one to take you up to the surface. Tonight she pressed the button for Sub-Level Five. She knew that Sub-Level Six would be busy, since it never shut down, and she wasn't in the mood for dealing with almost-strangers right now.

She wished Al would tell her more about the Project. He had taken her to see the chemistry labs, the accelerators on Sub-Level Six, and a great deal more, but from what she had picked up listening to him and to others (just because she wasn't "book smart" didn't mean she was stupid) she had gathered that there was more to Starbright that what she had seen. The stuff that went on on the surface was just for show. They tested prototype planes and cars that could travel faster than an Indy 500 racer, but this was only a superficial excuse for the secret compound deep in the desert. The activity on Sub-Level Six wasn't the real thing, either: Al had called it a concession that they had made to keep Congress happy.

Maxine suspected that the real activity of Starbright went on somewhere called "Sub-Level Omega". She had heard people talking about it, but she had no idea how to get to it. None of the elevators would take you there.

Sub-Level Five had the animal testing labs, and an assortment of offices belonging to the scientists. It was usually a fairly quiet place, at least comparatively. Maxine wandered up and down the empty corridors, working her legs and feeling the unpleasantness of the bad dream dissipating as the blood began to pump energetically through her body. She passed broom closet, offices, storage rooms… and an unmarked door.

Maxine turned around and strode back to it. An unmarked door? She had never seen _any_ door without some kind of label. Even the empty quarters bore plaques declaring them to be vacant. She paused in front of it, drawing in a deep breath and bracing for disappointment. It probably wasn't anything interesting: just a room full of bizarre scientific equipment or something. She opened the door and fought to stifle a small cry of delight.

Behind it was a long staircase, descending what looked like three or four stories into the ground. On either side of her, standing on a landing twice as broad as the door and the stairs below, were two Marines. They snapped instantly to attention. Maxine stepped between them and closed the door behind her.

"Morning, gentlemen," she said, smiling pleasantly as if this was a common occurrence. She probably wasn't supposed to be down here, but if she got caught at least she was going to be able to plead ignorance.

"Mrs. Calavicci," the one on the left said crisply.

Hmm. Maybe she _was_ allowed to be down here after all.

Maxine skipped lightly down the staircase, her sandals snapping against her heels. Halfway down, there was another landing like the first. Two more guards were waiting here, and though they each bore an imposing riffle, they were just as easy to deal with as the others had been.

At the bottom of the stairs there was a larger room with a small door in one wall. Here, four more Marines were on duty. One of them stepped forward.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but you aren't allowed down here," he said. "Authorized personnel only."

Maxine put on her most alluring smile and tilted her head, running her fingers through her hair. "I'm not authorized?" she queried.

"No, ma'am."

Another soldier stepped forward. Maxine recognized him as the handsome young one who had picked her and Al up at the airport after their honeymoon. "She's Captain Calavicci's wife, sir," he said.

"I know who she is, corporal," the first man told him. "And she doesn't have clearance."

Maxine shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Maybe this was a bad idea. She didn't want to get into trouble.

"What if she's on an errand for the Captain? He sometimes works late," the young corporal pointed out.

His superior turned to Maxine. "Are you, ma'am?"

"Yes," Maxine said impulsively. This was turning into quite the little adventure, and really, how much trouble could she possibly get into? "Yes, he sent me to pick up some reports from… from…" She groped for a name of a scientist she hadn't met yet. "… from Doctor Eleese. It's not important: I just thought I would save him the walk. I can leave right now if it's a problem."

She turned to leave, but was deliberately slow. The older Marine's frown deepened. Then he cleared his throat.

"Uh… did the captain tell you what you would have to do when you got down here?" he asked. "Before we can let you in?"

Maxine felt a flutter of apprehension. This was a bad idea. Her eyes fell on a ledger book sitting on a small table near the door. "He said I'd have to sign in?" she tried. She knew she was digging herself in deeper with each word, but on the other hand, it was kind of exciting! She had always had a secret and very juvenile desire to try something illegal, just once. Although what she was doing wasn't against the law (at least, she didn't think it was), it was almost certainly against Project rules.

The young Marine—Max couldn't remember his name—grinned. "See, sir? Just let her take care of it."

Maxine smiled again. Her smile had always been her main advantage. Most guys couldn't resist it. The commanding officer nodded. "Take care of it, then, Nick," he said, and went back to stand by the other two men.

"Just sign in with your name and the time," Nick told Maxine, handing her a pen and indicating the first blank line in the ledger. "When you leave, you'll have to sign out."

"Thanks," Maxine said, bending over the table.

"My pleasure!" he said happily.

Then he took out a key, unlocked the door, and held it open for her.

Maxine stepped through into a room full of computers. They all seemed to be running programs, but no one was attending to them. The door behind her closed, and she wondered for a minute if she was locked in—but then noticed that on this side the deadbolt was manual, with a wing-shaped handle bearing the five-pointed Starbright star. She turned back to look around the room, but the gibberish scrolling through the myriad monitors meant nothing to her. Instead, she opened the glass door in the far wall, and stepped into a corridor.

It wasn't really a corridor, she noticed almost at once. It was a mezzanine or an observation deck, running all the way around the perimeter of a room bigger than any she had ever seen. It had to be as big as two or three football fields. The walkway was eight feet broad, and the wall looking down over the room was made entirely of glass, or at least it looked like glass. A transparent railing ran along it, four feet from the floor. Maxine looked around to ensure that she was alone, and then moved towards the edge.

What she saw below left her gaping. The entire volume of the room—the floor of which had to be at least fifty feet below her—was filled with equipment. Metal tubes coiled around the room and one another, four tiers of planar snakes glimmering under the lights. There were access panels and more machinery than she had ever seen. Things were blinking and cycling, and lab coat clad figures moved about like ghosts. She stared in confusion. What on earth _was_ this place?

There was a cough that made Maxine jump. She whirled around to find herself face-to-face with a woman. She was maybe ten years older than Max: tall, slender, and sternly beautiful, with masses of brown, curling hair. There was fury in her eyes, but she curled her lip and said courteously, "Mrs. Calavicci, I presume?"

Maxine swallowed hard. She'd been caught. "Yes," she said meekly.

The other woman nodded. "I see," she said crisply. Then she extended her hand. Maxine moved to shake it, but the scientist seized her wrist. "I don't suppose your husband would have mentioned that this is a restricted area?"

Maxine tried to pull away, but the scientist stood fast. Maxine's eyes went wide as she saw the plastic identification badge on the lab coat pocket. This was Doctor Eleese, whose name she had dropped to get in here. Her throat was dry. "I…"

"I thought not," said Eleese, her voice clipped and cold. "Come with me."

As if she had a choice, Maxine thought despairingly as she trotted to keep up with the woman leading her by the wrist. Eleese led her along the mezzanine to a door in the opaque wall. It opened on a boardroom. She marched to the far end, pulled one of the chairs away from the long table, and sat Maxine roughly down in it.

"Now," Eleese said, putting one hand on each of the armrests and leaning down over the younger woman; "what are we going to do with you? Do you want me to call the captain to come collect you?"

She couldn't wake Al up! The whole point of leaving the suite in the first place was that Al needed his sleep! "No!" Maxine cried. "No, don't do that!"

"Out past your bedtime?" Eleese asked meanly. "I have to tell you, my dear, that at three in the morning I expect to be at my most productive: no inane interruptions from technicians, administrators, Committee members or high school students."

Maxine couldn't speak. She was trying to comprehend how much trouble she was in. What were they going to do with her?

"Don't move," Eleese ordered, moving to the wall and opening a panel that concealed a telephone. She dialed four numbers, watching Maxine like a hawk. "Hello, Colonel?" she said. "Doctor Eleese. We have an intruder on Sub-Level Omega… No, no need for an alarm. I have her detained. Take your time." There was another pause. Eleese arched her eyebrows. "Mrs. Calavicci, believe it or not. In room O-17."

She cradled the receiver and moved to lean against the table, arms crossed over her chest. "Colonel Smythe will be down directly to deal with you," she said. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

Maxine felt tears prickling in her eyes. "I just… I didn't want to wake Al up," she whispered.

"You didn't want to wake Al up?" Eleese parroted, nonplussed.

Max nodded. "He had a really rough day, and he was so tired. I didn't want to wake him up, and I was scared I would." She hid her head in her hands. The Head of Security was coming for her. Al was going to be so angry: he had never wanted to talk about Starbright's secrets, and now she had been caught nosing around on the top-secret level!

"So you came down here?"

"Yes—no! No, I just wanted to go for a walk!" Maxine protested. "I saw the blank door and I was…" She bit her lip to keep from crying.

"Curious. You were curious." Eleese's voice was still cool, but not nearly as vindictive as it had been a minute ago. There was a pause, and she added pensively, "I never noticed that the door wasn't marked…"

"It isn't," Maxine said; "and it's the only one I've seen that isn't. I…" She had to stop talking, because the tears were mounting again and she wanted desperately to keep from crying.

"I think you're right…" Eleese said, getting up and pacing the length of the room. "You're right, it _is_ the only unlabeled door on the Project! Of all the ridiculous oversights…"

"I'm sorry," Maxine went on when she was able. "I really am sorry. I wasn't trying to cause trouble…" She flushed at the lie. She _had_ been trying to break the rules. She just hadn't really thought she was going to get caught! It had been so easy to get down here that she hadn't actually believed she would be found out. "I'm sorry," she repeated.

Then she couldn't bear it anymore. Al was going to be so angry, so disappointed. She had tried so hard to be a good wife, and now he was going to be furious. The first tear rolled down her cheek. She couldn't stop the others. She began to cry in earnest, her face burning with humiliation but her body unable to curtail its sobs.

"Hey…" Eleese said. She put a hand on Maxine's shoulder. "Hey, calm down: we don't execute trespassers, you know."

Maxine only wept harder. What was Al going to say?

Doctor Eleese squatted down in front of the chair and looked up at her. "Hey, don't cry," she said. "It's okay. Ssh, hon, don't…" She rose again and gathered Maxine into a comforting hug. "It's okay," she repeated. "You're not in that much trouble. Don't cry."

Maxine leaned into the comforting embrace. This was just what she had been wanting all night, and she wasn't about to pull away. The sobs died away and she fell silent. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm… I'm just…"

Eleese pulled a paper tissue out of her pocket. "All right," she said. "Blow your nose and settle down. Would you like a glass of water?"

Max nodded, scrubbing at her eyes with the tissue, and suddenly glad that it was three in the morning, because she didn't have makeup running down her cheeks.

"Okay. Don't go anywhere."

Eleese left the room. Maxine tried frantically to compose herself. She was such a baby, she reflected angrily, blowing noisily into the tissue and shivering a little.

"Now," Eleese said, returning with a glass in one hand and a box of tissues in the other. "Have a little water and settle down. I didn't mean to scare you like that." She drew up a chair and reached out to brush a damp tendril of hair away from Maxine's eyes. "You okay?"

Maxine nodded. The older woman's eyes were gentle now, and there was genuine concern on her face. "I'm so sorry, Doctor Eleese, I—"

"You can call me Donna," the scientist said. "Now, tell me what happened. Did you and Captain Calavicci have a fight?"

She shook her head. "No, no," she said. "He was just tired when he came back from work, and I didn't want to wake him up. Donna," she added tentatively.

Doctor Eleese took her hand in an amicable fashion. "Why were you awake?" she asked kindly.

"I…" Maxine cast her eyes down into her lap. "I had a dream," she whispered. "I couldn't go back to sleep."

"So you went for a walk instead," Donna confirmed, eliciting a nod. The scientist smiled. "I do that all the time."

"Yeah?" Maxine said, looking up.

"Yeah, all the time."

There was a silence. At last, Maxine worked up the courage to speak. "Donna?" she said softly. "What _is_ that thing out there?"

The other woman laughed. "That's a synchrotron," she said. At Maxine's blank look, she translated. "A particle accelerator. We're trying to break the light barrier."

That meant about as much to Maxine as it would have had Donna been speaking Mandarin Chinese. "Why?" she asked.

Another laugh. The scientist looked almost happy now. She shrugged. "Because no one has ever done it? Because we think we can? Because if we weren't I wouldn't have a job? Actually, you know, I'm not sure. Mostly because no one has ever done it, I think."

"What does it do?" Maxine asked, her mind drifting back to the strange machine outside.

"It fires electrons in a fixed pattern, and then accelerates them to near-light speeds. Then we run them through scatter plates and analyze the patterns. We adjust the angle of refraction each time, attempting to achieve a slightly greater acceleration in the hope that some day one of those little guys will make it," Donna said.

It was Maxine's turn to laugh a little. "I have no idea what that means," she admitted.

Donna stood up. "Well, come with me and I'll show you," she said.

Her distress fading, Maxine followed. They stepped out onto the observation deck, and Doctor Eleese approached the window. "You see that big box on the end there? The one with the Starbright emblem?"

Maxine nodded.

"In there is a superpowered argon-xenon laser," Donna explained. "It fires a pulse of energy that agitates the electrons—"

"What are electrons?" Maxine asked.

Doctor Eleese had no chance to vocalize the disbelief on her face, because there was a sound of boots ringing out on the metal floor, and Colonel Smythe came striding into view, flanked by two Marines. Donna's hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, I forgot to call you off!" she said. "Everything's fine. Mrs. Calavicci and I—"

"Maxine, please call me Maxine," Max said eagerly. Her interest was piqued, and her insatiable curiosity set aflame.

"Maxine and I were just discussing—"

"You called about an intruder," Colonel Smythe said, his deep voice resonating through the enclosed space. "I'm afraid Mrs. Calavicci will have to come with us."

"Oh, no, that's not necessary," Donna said, stepping ever so slightly in front of Maxine. "We're getting along just fine. I don't want to file a complaint anymore."

"That's unfortunate," the colonel said. "The report has already been filed. I'm afraid, Mrs. Calavicci, that you'll have to come upstairs with us to resolve this."

Maxine looked at him skeptically. He was the one who had practically broken down the door because she hadn't had clearance. "I… am I in trouble?" she asked.

His expression did not alter at all. "Not if there is no complaint. If you'd just come with us, ma'am, I'm sure we can get this cleared up in a few minutes."

Maxine looked at Donna, who shrugged helplessly. "All right," Max said. "I really am sorry about all this fuss."

"Never mind," Donna said. "We'll have to continue our conversation later."

"I'd like that," Maxine said. Then she followed Colonel Smythe, the two other Marines falling in behind her. As they ascended the stairs and made their way to the elevator, Maxine couldn't help feeling like some kind of a prisoner.

When they reached the security office where the three little holding cells were, that feeling began to get stronger.

"Turn around and put your hands behind your back," Smythe ordered.

Confused, Maxine obeyed. Suddenly someone grabbed her wrist. She tried to struggle, but the Marine's compatriot took hold of her shoulder. They were putting her in handcuffs!

"What are you doing?" she cried. "You said—"

"I lied," Smythe told her. "You see, it doesn't do to upset the scientists. The fact is, ma'am, that you have breached Starbright regulations Section 12, Subsection 32, and under federal law I am authorized to detain you until such a time as the truth of the matter can be found out—or the Project Administrator grants you amnesty pending a hearing."

"Al's the Project Administrator!" Maxine protested as the Marines pushed her firmly, though admittedly not roughly, into one of the cells.

"That's right, he is," Smythe said, as if he hadn't thought of it. "Well, that might be construed as a conflict of interest, don't you think?"

Then suddenly he was gone, and Maxine was left alone with a silent Marine watching her from the corner. Her throat closed as she struggled fruitlessly against the restraints. What on earth was wrong with these people?


	9. Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

"What the hell do you mean, 'within his rights'?" Al roared into the receiver, pacing the width of his office and dragging the telephone cord with him. "He had my wife handcuffed and locked up in a holding cell!"

The voice of Congressman Les Davies, Colorado, came over the line, ever calm and pleasant. "I realize that, Al, but try to look at it from Colonel Smythe's perspective. She's the first person who has ever breached Sub-Level Omega. The security threat—"

"_Threat_? She's a florist's assistant from Santa Fe! She's harmless!" Al cried.

"Al, I know that and you know that, but Ken—"

"And besides that, she's my wife! Damn it, Les, he arrested my wife!"

Still, the statesman was unphased by the captain's anger. "Detained, Al. Arrested is such a harsh word, and inappropriate, as I understand no charges are being laid."

"You're wrong! Charges _are_ being laid!" Al snapped. "_I'm _laying charges against Smythe!"

"Al, that isn't wise—"

"Don't give me that crap! He had her hands shackled behind her back!" Al shouted. "You and I both know the kind of discomfort that causes!" Discomfort? Who was he fooling? It was nothing less than a form of passive torture.

"Shackled? Al, they were American handcuffs, not French manacles, and—"

"I don't care! It's cruel and unusual punishment, and I'm—"

"Al, would you please settle down? You may feel that way, but do you really think that the CIA will agree?" Davies asked levelly.

"CIA?" Al echoed. His eyes wandered over to the leather-upholstered visitor's chair where Maxine was seated with her hands in her lap. She was shivering subtly. Cold, he wondered, thinking of her sandaled feet, or trauma? It didn't even occur to him that her distress might be (and in fact was) due to his own choleric tirade.

"Yes. Who did you think investigates the secret projects?" asked Davies.

"I assumed the FBI," Al said absently, still preoccupied with his wife's abject posture. He hadn't thought anything of her absence this morning: he had overslept a little with a hangover, and had thought she'd left early for the gym. Then at eleven o'clock Doctor Eleese had come into his office asking after a decoy nameplate for the access door to Sub-Level Omega. She had happened to mention that she hoped that Maxine had not had any trouble from Colonel Smythe. Al had wrung the story out of her, and then gone charging up to Sub-Level One. There he had found her—his kid Max!—sitting on the edge of the shelf in the center cell, looking like she had been crying all damned night.

"Not where national security is concerned," Les was saying.

"_Maxine is not a threat to national security_!" Al howled.

"I know, I know," Davies placated. "I'm just saying that if you try to take action against Colonel Smythe, the CIA will have to investigate the allegation. Ken is one of the best we've got, Al, and if it came to a choice between him and you, I'm not sure the Committee would pick you."

Al felt his jaw go slack. "Are you threatening me, Les?" he gawked. "_You_?"

"Of course not," Davies chuckled. "You saved my life Al—more than once. We're friends. Aren't we?"

"Well, I _thought_ we were."

"Of course we are: that's why I'm being honest with you," Les went on. "Let it go, and from now on keep her out of trouble."

"Keep her—she's my wife, Les, not my goddamned daughter!" Al blustered. "_Damn _you—"

He kicked the leg of his desk, and the toe of his blue tennis shoe crumpled painfully against his foot. He almost dropped the receiver. It had seemed like such a good idea to go to work in civvies this morning. He had felt so spry and cheery and confident when he had greeted Eulalie wearing long sleeves and bright colors and a slender tie. When he had gone charging up to Starbright's brig, however, to bully the Marines into letting Max go, he had felt like a fool. A vitriolic clown. Those kids were probably having a good laugh at his expense right now. On the other hand, they _had_ hopped to it like good little drones, so he must've had some kind of aura of command despite his unconventional clothing.

"Al? You still there, buddy?" Les asked.

"Yeah, I'm here," Al snarled. "What?"

"I was saying, if she had clearance you wouldn't need to worry where she was wandering," the politician pointed out. "If she wants to work for Starbright, I'd be more than happy to put in a good word for her."

"She doesn't need you!" Al exclaimed. "I'm Project Administrator and I can hire whoever I want!"

"That's so: you can," Les drawled. "By the way, I was on the line with one of the boys in H.R., and he said you're trying a new look."

Al surveyed his outfit defensively. "You got a problem with that?"

Les laughed merrily. "Not at all! I think it's a great idea. I've always thought Starbright was too military."

Al's eyes fell on the handcuffs and key lying on his blotter. He had left the security offices without dropping them. "You are so damned right about that," he growled. "Goodbye!"

He slammed down the receiver before Les could reciprocate, and Al began to pace again, wrathfully. This was so much crap. That vindictive Marine had detained Maxine without cause, and the only advice Al's best friend in Washington—a man he'd done time in hell with, for God's sake—had was _let it go_? The thinly-veiled warning was not lost on a man whose bread and butter had been coming compliments of Uncle Sam for all of his adult life: drop it or else.

Without really realizing it, Al began to vocalize his inner monologue of frustration. "If those nozzles think I'm going to let this go… I mean Smythe's a tight-assed bastard, and I know he's got it in for me, but taking out on _Maxine_—damn him! What the hell gives him the right? It isn't even _reasonable_! For crying out loud, Eleese the Ice Queen herself didn't have a problem with it: where does Smythe get off throwing his weight around?"

His hands were quaking, and he bent instinctively, reaching into the bottom drawer of the desk and drawing out a bottle of gin. He took a glass from the bookcase, and poured himself a serving, knocking it back in two quick swallows. He took a deep breath and felt himself calming a little. He glanced at Maxine. Poor kid…

A sudden thought reined him in short. Les had heard from Human Resources that he wasn't wearing his uniform today? What were they, spying on him or something?

No, wait, Les had recommended a kid to Al a couple of years back: Dan Penvenen, the guy who had been so quick to get clearance for Max the night she'd arrived. Penvenen was a bit on the formal side, but he was a great guy, and seemed to love his work. It only made sense—okay, _almost_ made sense—that he'd call up his mentor for a little chat on a Tuesday morning and happen to casually mention the Project Administrator's lack of uniform.

If anyone could fix it so that this never happened again, it was Dan.

Al rounded the desk, and Maxine looked up, her blue eyes anxious. "What do you want to do?" Al asked.

"Do?" she breathed.

"At Starbright. You need to be on the payroll. I'm not going to let Smythe repeat his little performance. What do you want to do?"

She swallowed hard. Poor kid looked scared half to death. "I… I don't know…"

"What about social coordinator? Could you do that?" Al rubbed his index finger along his eyebrow. He had to settle down. Maybe a cigar… He returned behind his desk and opened the top drawer in search of one.

Maxine perked up. "You mean organize parties and intramurals and things?" she asked.

Al smiled a little around the cylinder. "Never thought of intramurals," he said, his diction impeded. "Whaddaya think, twenty hours a week?"

She nodded eagerly. Al felt a flush of proprietary gratification. Nice to make the kid smile. He removed the cigar from his teeth and depressed the intercom button. "Eulie?"

His secretary's voice came through. "Yes, Captain?"

"Get Dan Penvenen from H.R. up here pronto," he said. "I need him to draw up a new position for me."

Eulalie acknowledged, and Al moved around to lean against the front of his desk. He reached out to stroke Maxine's hair. "Now," he said with gentleness at odds with the words; "you want to tell me what the hell you were doing on Sub-Level Omega at three in the morning?"

Maxine dropped her gaze back into her lap. "I wanted to take a walk…"

Al couldn't keep some of his annoyance from filtering into his voice. "And you just _happened_ to wander into the most top-secret area of the Project?"

She nodded meekly. "I'm sorry," she said in a very tiny voice.

The anger flared up again. "Oh, I see: you're _sorry_!" he snapped, bouncing into the pacing again. "And that fixes everything! What I don't think you realize is that this isn't a joke! You didn't poke around in the high school teachers' lounge, Maxine: there are _laws_ protecting the information down there! The U.S. Department of Defense is running this Project, sweetheart. People who break into places like Omega wind up doing life plus ten in a five-sided room so deep in DC that you'll never be seen again! You try _anything_ like that again, and I'll—"

A tiny sob broke through the defenses, and Al froze in dismay.

"Hey…" he murmured in horror. "Aw, kiddo, don't cry…"

Maxine's whole body shook with the next sob. Al stared, distraught and helpless. He hadn't meant to make her cry…

He deposited his cigar unceremoniously in the ashtray and moved to touch her face. "Maxie, honey, don't cry," he pleaded. "Don't cry. I'm not mad."

"Yo-ou are, you a-a-are ma-ad," Maxine wailed, pressing her hand to her mouth as she tried to force back her distress and failed miserably.

"Well, yeah, I am," Al admitted. He hugged her so that her head pressed against his abdomen, and ran his hand up and down her shuddering back. "But not at you, baby. I'm not mad at you."

"You are," she whispered. "You should be. I'm a-a-a-an emb-barrassment. I'm a disg-race. I-I-I—"

"Shh…" Al said, rocking her a little. "Shh, Maxie, you're not a disgrace," he soothed. "You're not. Come on now, honey, don't cry. Gimme a smile."

"I'm sorry," she whimpered. "I'm so sorry."

"Naw, honey, just smile, okay?" Al asked. "C'mon. Where's that beautiful smile?"

"You mean that?" she breathed, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

Al frowned in confusion. "Mean what?"

"That I—that I'm beautiful?"

Al tried not to laugh. "Of course you're beautiful," he said, petting her cheek.

Maxine smiled and leapt up to embrace him, laughing a little. "Thank you!" she said, kissing him. "Thank you so much."

Al rocked her back and forth, hugging her slender hips. "I'll tell you what," he said; "when Dan gets here, we'll get the paperwork rolling, and then I'm taking you into Phoenix."

"Why?" Maxine asked, tilting her head to one side.

"I have a surprise for you," Al said.

Her smile broadened. "What?" she wheedled.

"Uh-uh," Al said. "It's a surprise."

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

"Dan's a great guy, isn't he?" Al asked, evading her question for the tenth time.

Maxine leaned against his arm, watching the suburbs slip past. The day that had started out as such a nightmare was now shaping up to be quite nice. The cute guy in the Armani suit who had given her her clearance had shown up shortly after the announcement of a surprise. He had brought some papers for her to sign, and promised to draw up a job description for her. Then she and Al had gone back to their suite so she could change, and headed out for Phoenix. Al had even let her keep the handcuffs, though he seemed to think she had to be nuts. She hadn't explained why she wanted them: the surprise would be half the fun.

"Yes, he's a great guy," she agreed. "Kinda sexy."

"Sexy? Him?" Al chuckled. "Not as sexy as me, I hope."

"Even Robert de Niro isn't as sexy as you," Maxine promised, kissing his earlobe. "Maybe Harrison Ford."

"Really?" Al affected a hurt look.

"Well, maybe not quite," she said. Then an idea occurred to her, and she sat up with a little anticipatory squeal. "Is _that _the surprise?" she asked.

"Is what the surprise?"

"Are you taking me to see _Star Wars_?" she pressed eagerly. "I was going to go see it when it opened, you know, but I got so busy, and then we got married, and if I don't hurry up it'll be out of the theaters and I'll have missed it—"

"Slow down: you're going to wear out the ball bearings in your jaw," Al teased. "_Star Wars_, huh?"

She nodded emphatically. "I saw _The Empire Strikes Back_ seventeen times!" she said. "I thought I'd go crazy not knowing what was going to happen to Han Solo. I mean, they have to get him back, right? Because Harrison Ford's in the new movie, and—"

Al was laughing at her. He was laughing at her! She batted his arm.

"Hey, stop that!" she said indignantly.

"Okay, okay," he chuckled, but the mirth wasn't subsiding.

"Stop it!" she demanded, more playfully now.

Al took a deep breath. "Okay," he said again. "All right. I've stopped. I just never would've guessed you'd be into that kind of movie."

"I love science fiction!" Maxine declared. "I read The Martian Chronicles when I was eight. I even like _Star Trek_. Dr. McCoy—now, _he's_ sexy!"

"When I was eight, The Martian Chronicles hadn't even been published," Al laughed. "And the only Star Trek you've seen is in re-runs."

She sighed happily. "What was it like when it first came out?" she asked. When had _Star Trek_ aired? 'Sixty-six to 'sixty nine, right? Yeah, that was it. "Did everybody talk about it? Was it really popular right away?"

Al stiffened beneath her arm, and his lips went white. "I don't know," he said, his voice suddenly taught and strained. Then he turned and looked at her, his expression softening with an effort as he saw the confusion in her blue eyes. "To tell you the truth, baby," he murmured; "the only _Star Trek_ I've seen is in re-runs too."

This confession seemed to be costing him a lot, and Maxine couldn't understand why. She didn't know what else to do, so she kissed him as he braked for a red light. She ran her fingers through his hair. "That's okay," she said. "I forgive you."

There was a moment of strange vulnerability in his dark eyes, and then he laughed, grabbing her waist and kissing her back, harder. "Tell you what," he said; "we'll do my surprise first. Then if you don't want to go home and play right away, we'll get dinner and see if we can track down a theater showing _Star Wars_. Deal?"

"Oh, Al!" she said. "You're going to spoil me!"

"That's my goal in life, doll," he told her.

The car behind them honked loudly, and Al laughed a little as he rolled through the green light.

He stopped downtown, along one of the trendy streets lined with coffee shops and record stores. Maxine looked around in confusion as he opened her door for her and offered her his hand like a real gentleman—as if she were a real lady.

"What're we doing here?" she asked.

Al kissed her cheek and pointed at one of the storefronts. It was a sports supply shop. Maxine's brow furrowed. "Huh?"

"Now, most people like the classic white with red wheels," Al said, not bothering to answer. "Personally, I think creativity is undervalued in today's derby circles…"

Maxine couldn't conceal her delight. "Roller-skates?" she cried. "You're going to buy me roller-skates?"

He nodded smugly and let her fling her long, slender arms jubilantly around his neck.


	10. Chapter Nine

CHAPTER NINE

It was lonely in New York. No matter how hard he tried, he could never quite like this city. There was something so… wrong about it. The crowds, the smog, the traffic that never paused for sleep. Even Columbia, where he had finished his doctorate in modern languages last spring, was not quite the beautiful campus he had had in Massachusetts. In any case, Columbia wasn't his school any longer. They had offered him a postdoctoral fellowship, but the sad reality was that, although languages was a pleasant diversion, it was far from being what he wanted to do with his life. It was fun, but it wasn't heaven.

He wanted to go home… but of course, there wasn't any home to go to. More than a century they had been on that land, and now it was gone. Of course, keeping it had not been an option. He didn't want to farm for a living any more than he wanted to parse.

What he really wanted to do—all he really wanted to do—was bury himself in the world of research. There was so much potential for practical, wondrous applications of the kind of physics that was so theoretical it was nearly fantastical, if only _someone_ would take the time to listen. No one ever did. No one but his first and best teacher, who had tenure to think of and a call to be a professor that his star pupil, the prodigy from the Midwest, had never felt. What was needed was a great deal of money: some kind of corporate sponsorship, or the support of a large and prestigious university…

But no university had the money to lavish on a wager like this. The kind of physics that this overqualified young dreamer loved was too abstract to gain funding. His theories were too absurd to gain credibility. He had been trying for years to get something published in some kind of worthwhile journal. Even attaching Professor LoNigro's name to his papers hadn't given them the punch that they needed to garner the respect of the scientific community.

He was beginning to despair of ever making anything of himself. Maybe he _should_ just take the fellowship at Columbia, and settle down to a quiet life as a linguistics professor. It wasn't what he wanted to do, but it was better than the existence he had now, picking up the occasional guest lecture here or there in one of his six areas of expertise, and lying awake in the small hours of the morning, dreaming of something more. Dreaming of the chance to make a real difference in the world of quantum physics. Dreaming of the opportunity to do what his brother had always encouraged him to do, to follow his true talent and do what he truly loved, when in fact he had a better chance of meeting his own great-grandmother.

The problem wasn't his theories. He _knew_ they were sound. They _would_ work. The problem was that no one else could see that, and he had absolutely no idea how to help them understand.

He had mastered eleven languages—seven modern, four dead—but for the life of him he couldn't speak layman physics.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

At one in the morning, the night shift at Starbright Human Resources was at its absolute slowest. Never one to waste time, Daniel Penvenen was sharpening his pencils. He liked to keep one dozen ready and waiting at all times. One never knew when they would come in handy.

In his experience, commercial pencil sharpeners produced substandard results. Instead, he used a four-inch stainless steel pocketknife. Because of the crest emblazoned on the handle, it was a risky article to carry around, but no one was really very likely to notice it—or to make the most logical conclusion if they did. They were far more likely to suppose he had obtained it from a friend or a family member, or even purchased it. Carrying it was a calculated risk like any other, and Dan was very careful how he calculated his risks.

Unlike Captain Calavicci.

Nepotism was a very risky game to play. It would have been one thing to give the girl a job as a secretary or a cafeteria server. Creating a whole new full-clearance position, however, was a grave political gaff. He had been astounded to hear that Congressman Davies—his contact on the Committee—had thought it was a workable suggestion. When Calavicci had dragged him down to his office to draw up the papers, Dan had scarcely been able to believe his luck. He was digging himself deeper and deeper. At the rate he was going, he would be discreditable within the year.

The only trouble was that it was a shame to bring down charming young Mrs. Calavicci with her useless, lecherous post-traumatic-stress-disorder-riddled rummy of a husband. She was a delightful young lady: thoroughly likeable. Her idea of introducing intramural sports into the Starbright environment was an excellent one. It had struck a cord with Dan, who knew first-hand the importance of a high level of physical fitness.

Of course, he reflected as he swept the pencil shavings into his wastebasket, these days his work was a little more sedentary.

He glanced at the four composition books full of evidence against Calavicci and smiled.

But no less rewarding.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMW_

Al locked the door as Maxine strode into the living room and deposited her packages on the spare sofa. "Have a nice evening?"

"Oh, _yes_!" Maxine breathed. "It was wonderful. Wasn't that a great movie?"

"I dunno," Al said. "I think I liked the last one better."

"Oh, well, yeah, but you can't improve on perfection," Maxine said, opening the box and taking out her new skates. "God, they're gorgeous," she sighed happily. "I wish I knew how to use them!"

"You'll learn," Al told her, moving into the kitchen and digging out a tray of ice. "You want anything?" he asked.

"Orange juice," Maxine said. "You know, you really shouldn't drink so much."

"Why not?"

"It's not good for you. It's hard on your… uhm… your… it's hard on something."

"Liver," Al said, taking a long draught of whiskey and rummaging in the fridge for the pitcher of orange juice. "Alcohol is hard on the liver."

"Well, there you go," Maxine said, spinning the wheels of the left skate. She had settled, after much deliberation, on canary yellow ones with neon orange wheels and crimson laces. She had picked out pads and a helmet to match, and then talked Al into taking her to a boutique where she had bought herself three sets of legwarmers, three leotards, three pairs of satin running shorts, and three mesh shirts—one in each color. "It's hard on your liver: you shouldn't do it."

"I like it," Al argued. "And believe me, baby, if my liver's survived the things that have gone into this mouth, a little bit of scotch isn't going to finish it off."

There was a pause during which he brought her a glass of orange juice on the rocks, and settled on the sofa to watch her exploring her new equipment. Presently, Maxine spoke again.

"Do you like being drunk?" she asked.

"Do I what?" Al drained the liquid from his glass and reached for the bottle.

"Well, I don't really like being drunk," Maxine continued, "having no control over what I'm doing or saying, the way the whole room seems to spin. It's all right to be tipsy, maybe, but not drunk. And then you wake up with a hangover, and your head feels like it's been run over by a bulldozer, and—"

"Are you trying to turn me into a teetotaler?" Al asked, frowning at her.

"No," Maxine said. "I was just thinking, maybe, if you cut back a little bit…"

Al stiffened defensively. "Does it bother you?"

"No-o…" she said. Then she put her roller-skate back into the box and slipped onto the couch next to him. "No, it doesn't." This time there was more conviction in her voice. "Not really."

"Good," he said. Yet somehow, the whiskey didn't taste as good anymore, and he set the glass aside, wrapping both of his arms around her. She smiled and leaned back against him.

"You ready to go to bed?" she asked. "Or are you in the mood for something new?"

He snuffled in her hair as he spoke. "Maxine, Maxine," he breathed. "I am _always_ in the mood for something new."

"Good. Go into the bedroom," she instructed. "Take off your clothes and lie face-down on the bed."

Al laughed. "You're not going to see much action with me in that position!" he teased.

She leaned back far enough that she could kiss his chin. "You'd be surprised!" she said. Then she got up and shooed him towards the bedroom. "Hurry up!" she said. "You have two minutes!"

Shaking his head, Al complied. He undressed. "Lights on or off?" he called.

"Turn off the overheads, and turn on the bedside lamp," Max shouted back.

"What're you doing out there?"

A silvery laugh rang out. "You'll see!"

As instructed, Al lay down on the bed. Then Maxine appeared in the doorway. She had stripped down to her camisole and panties, and in her hand was a little jar of something white.

"What have you got there?" Al asked.

"Cocoa butter lotion," Maxine said. "I thought I could do some finger-painting."

Al stared at her. "_Finger-painting_?"

She crept onto the bed and sat down on his knees. Then a cool tendril began to trace one of the scars webbing his back. Al hissed. "What the…"

"Ssh, relax," Maxine said, massaging his shoulder with the hand that wasn't busy applying the lotion to his back. "You're too tense."

Another scar was given similar treatment. It felt so strange to have gentle fingers following these lines of misery and hate. Al didn't know whether he should scream at her to stop touching them, or burst into tears of pathetic gratitude because she didn't seem to mind them.

"Most guys," Maxine said, kissing his eighth vertebrae; "I need to do free-form. It's harder. With you, I have some guidelines." She followed another scar, this one made by a strip cut from an old truck tire.

"Most guys, huh?" Al breathed. He was beginning to loosen up in spite of himself. "You've had a lot of boyfriends, have you?"

"Too many," Maxine murmured. The heel of her hand began to kneed a place between his floating ribs that he hadn't realized was so sore. "What about you?"

"Boyfriends?" Al teased. "Me?"

"No, silly. Women."

"Can never have too many women," he mumbled. The effect of her massage was almost hypnotic. He was dimly aware that this was the wrong thing to say, but he was growing too tranquil to care. "Have to try to find…"

Her left hand had worked its way up his neck, and was now toying with his hair while the right applied more lotion to his back. "That's right," she breathed. "Relax. You've had a long day. I wrecked your morning. You deserve to relax."

"You keep doing this," Al said drowsily; "and I'm going to fall asleep right here."

She kissed his right shoulder. "Mm-hmm."

"Isn't that a problem?"

"I know where you live. I'll take a rain check."

The laugh liberated him from the last of his inhibitions, as surely as half a bottle of scotch would have. Caring nothing for the greasy semisolid covering his back, he rolled over, twining his arms around her body. His own personal goddess. She laughed and he kissed her, deeply and passionately.

"You're something else, beautiful, you know that?" he asked.

She giggled a little, taking his head in her hands and letting her eyes glitter gorgeously. "Am I really?" she asked.

He didn't play games this time. He knew what she was asking, and she deserved to hear it. "Yes, yes you are," he said. "You're beautiful. Very, very beautiful. The most beautiful woman I've seen in eighteen years."

"Who's the most beautiful you've seen, ever?" Maxine asked coyly, stroking the side of his neck.

Al shook his head and kissed her again, feasting on her innocent loveliness and her joyful heart, and trying with all his might to forget.


	11. Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

The human body could acclimatize itself to almost anything. The first time they showed you a bowl of dirty white rice, overcooked and stone cold, garnished with dead weevils and live maggots, stinking and starchy and rancid, your stomach rebelled so violently that you brought up the very acid that your stomach was providing in anticipation of the long-withheld meal. After a few years of slow starvation, you didn't even think about it any more—or at least you tried much, much harder not to. The first week without bathing was torment. After a while, when you didn't even have enough water to wet your swollen tongue, the lack of hygiene seemed less important. Though initially first-world sensibilities made you very particular about where you took care of bodily functions, eventually you considered yourself fortunate if they didn't leave you lying—or in the tiger cage, squatting—in your own mess for more than a week. Sooner or later, almost everything become commonplace: it was foul and it was wretched, and if you thought too hard about it you would go crazy with the vileness, but it did, to a degree, become routine. There was one thing, though, that you never did seem to adapt to.

You never got used to the pain.

Ropes. Troughs of dirty water. Fire. Iron bars that weighted almost as much as you did. Just when you thought you had lived through it all, Charlie came up with something new. Something worse.

Even with the whips, the "V" could surprise you. There were some things—_crack!_ and your shoulder blade was running with blood—that could be done with a whip that were beyond the—_thump! _and your whole body shuddered with pain—comprehension of the sane human mind. A skilled hand and a quick eye turned the glass-studded tassels—_whoosh! _and you swung backwards as your tormentor reset—of the long leather lash into an extension of the arm. There were those who could use the weapon—_snap! _and your neck jerked to the side—with scalpel-like precision. Worst of all—_thunk!_ and an old scar was ripped open again—was the Bitch. When she—_smack_! And you bit back a howl of agony—beat you, you forgot—_hiss_! and the weapon drew back only to come down again—everything but the pain. You—_thump! _and a rib was cut to the bone—existed from blow to blow—_splat!_ and your back was nothing but a mass of open wounds—and the only thing—_crack!_—that gave you the strength—_hiss!_—to live—_snap!_—through the pain—

"Beth!" he wailed, the screams he could no longer suppress coming out as a cry for his one consolation. "Beth!"

Laughter from his torturer. She knew the name. She knew what it meant to him, and the endurance that he drew from it. Where the other guards didn't care—let the captives shout for whom they pleased: agony was agony regardless—she was not content to ravage his thin, battered body. She wanted to brutalize his soul.

"Bess!" she mocked, her thickly accented voice full of cold, dispassionate malice. "Bess gone. She forget you."

The words stung more than a whip ever could. "No!" he cried in desperation. "No!" His focus shifted from the she-demon far too close to comfort, to the sweet, distant angel who visited him in half-waking dreams and gave him the tenacity to cling to life in the face of incredible odds. "Beth! Beth, Beth, Beth!"

He stifled another scream as the whip curled around his pelvis, opening a fissure across the crest of his emaciated hip.

"You dead," the Bitch said. She kept all intimation of glee from her voice, as if she was merely stating a fact. That, more than the words, struck terror in his heart. Had she betrayed the relish she found in this sick game, he could have written her allegation off as a malicious lie. When she spoke as she did, there was a chance, his fragile psyche had to admit, that she was, quite simply, telling the truth.

"You dead," she told him again. "I see American list from Hanoi. You dead. To wife you dead. She find new man. Real man, not coward. Not weak."

"Beth!" he cried, as if he could summon her to refute the other woman's words. "Beth! Beth!"

"To Bess you a dead man," the Bitch repeated, her voice communicating the futility of his screams. The whip came down again. And again. With each blow, now, he let out a sharp shriek that took the form of her name. He was calling to her, begging her with each tortured repetition of that one simple word to wait for him, to be there for him, to prove the Bitch wrong.

Suddenly, silence. The assault ceased. The swinging of his body, suspended from stretched and numb arms, petered out. The anguish plateau'd, and his natural endorphins—the closest thing to a pain medication he had had in five and a half years of unthinkable torment—were finally able to catch up a little. He screwed his eyes tightly closed. _'Beth,'_ he thought. _'Beth. I'm coming home. I'm coming home to you. I'm just a little late, honey. Beth, please. Please, wait for me_.

As if the Bitch could read his mind, she continued. "She find new man. Better man. Not weak. Not coward. Real man." Nails dug into the torn and bloodied flesh of his back.

Through teeth gritted against the pain, he snarled a lie. "I'm not a coward."

With a cool, scornful laugh, she drew back. "Bess!" she mocked, her arm flying like a windmill as the lash struck again and again. "Bess! Bess!"

He ground his teeth so hard that they began to wiggle in his scorbutic gums. He would not cry out again. She wanted him to shout, to call to Beth, to sob like a coward. He couldn't. No matter how much it hurt, he couldn't cry out. He had to prove that he was not what she made him out to be: if she was wrong about him, maybe she was wrong about Beth, too...

But she was down to the serious work of flogging him now, and keeping silent was so hard. The blows fell faster and bit deeper. The shards of glass cut him mercilessly. The leather cord stung like fire. The nerves in the dermis were raw and electrified now. He was blinded by the pain, and he tightened his jaw, determined to endure it. The effort was too much, and a blood vessel high in his nasal cavity burst, flooding his chin and chest with dark carmine fluid. The whip was falling now with sodden, squelching sounds, but his ears were ringing with his silent anguish, and he could hear nothing.

Suddenly she was in front of him, tall and dour. He squeezed his eyes shut again. He didn't want to see her… or what she was going to do.

The blows fell upon his chest and belly, his thighs. Each was carefully placed. Each brought fresh torment.

"Bess not help you?" the Bitch asked. Now he could hear the sadism in her voice, the perverse pleasure she took in his suffering. "Bess not save you? Bess not care."

"No," he choked, his voice taught with misery. "No. She loves me. I love her." He tried to fight back, meeting malice with malice. "Who loves you, Bitch? No one? I'm not surprised."

She said something in Vietnamese, and he wished for a second that he knew more of the language, because he thought he heard something akin to vulnerability in her voice. Then she laughed. "She love you? She _forget_ you!"

He shook his head. "No."

"She forget you," the Bitch repeated, the cruel words singsong and scornful.

He had to cling to Beth. To the memory of her, the woman he loved. The woman he was coming home to. _The woman who was waiting for him_. She was all that he had left. "_No_."

"She find other man."

"_No_!" Not Beth. Not his Beth. It was a lie. A stinking V.C. lie.

Or was it?

"Find new man," the Bitch taunted again. The words cut deeper than any whip. A thousand beatings could not hurt as much as the implication that his Beth didn't love him.

"Black Air Pirate. Criminal. Scum. Worthless. Why she love you? You worthless filth. She not want you. No one want you." The whip struck again. "Good for nothing but pain. Scum. No one want you."

It was the wrong thing to say, but he said it. Someone had to contradict her, and he knew that if he didn't, no on else would. "Beth loves me!" he gasped, a tear of desperation squeezing from his eye. "Beth wants me!"

No one else ever had, but Beth, Beth did. She did. She had to.

"Beth wants me," he repeated, but now it was a plea. He was begging, imploring Fate or Providence or Whatever—maybe he was even frantic enough to beg God—that it might be true. "She wants me."

The Bitch shook her head so that her long braid swung like a second whip. "No," she said tonelessly. "No. No one want you. Scum."

Something deep in his wounded heart snapped. Another thread of hope was broken. So many had been severed over the long years, and the vast majority of them by her. The Bitch was the only one in this godforsaken jungle hell who had any insight into the fuel that fed his defiance, and she used her knowledge to wear away the core of her captive. Slowly, his bastion of inner strength was crumbling beneath her relentless assaults. Today she had forced yet another hole through the fortress wall.

Tears began to stream down his sunken cheeks, mingling with the blood that covered his wasted body. The salt water stung in the fresh wounds, but he scarcely could feel the physical pain.

"No," he sobbed, broken yet again. She always broke him in the end. "No. Beth…"

She laughed, and he opened his eyes, and suddenly the jungle was gone. The Bitch stood before him, a white coat covering her black Viet Cong fatigues. She was smiling malevolently She raised her arm, but instead of the whip, she held a sheaf of Navy paperwork. He stared at it, his tortured body shivering, his stretched arms spasming, and his weary soul shattering. He could see it, over and over: her signature. Beth's signature.

"You dead," the Bitch said simply.

No beating, no torture had ever torn such a cry of soul-killing anguish from his lips.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Maxine woke up with a little, irrational gasp. Instinctively, she knew that something was not right. Nervously, she reached for Al. Her hand fell upon the warm indentation where he should have been sleeping. She groped for the bedside lamp, blinking in the sudden light.

"Al?" she called softly. The bedroom was empty. Max got up, plucking her camisole off the floor and pulling on the naughty little lace panties. She stepped out into the living room, turning on the nearest light there, too. Everything was just as she had left it, down to her clothes discarded on the sofa and the packages of roller-skating equipment scattered around the room...except that the door of the cupboard Al used as a liquor cabinet was open. The space seemed oddly empty.

She realized with a start that the shower was running. She tired the door, but it was locked. A moment in the kitchenette produced a wooden kebab skewer, with which she sprung the mechanism through a hole in the doorknob. She opened the door, and was greeted by an efflux of cold air bearing a strong, sour smell: a mixture of the reek of alcohol, and a much more unpleasant stink. As she entered the room, she saw what it was: there was chyme in the sink, where someone had vomited but not washed it away. Wrinkling her nose and fighting the bile rising in her throat, Maxine turned on the water, using her hand to direct the flow around the basin. There. That would clear the air a little.

She looked around. There was no sign of Al's bathrobe: he must have come straight from bed without bothering to cover up. Then she saw the two bottles—one that had held whiskey and one that had held bourbon, and she realized that he _had _made a side trip after all. Poor thing.

The shadow of his body behind the frosted glass door of the shower enclosure drew her eyes in that direction. The water was on full force, and he was facing the stream, his left hand set high against the tiled wall. He was leaning hard against that wall, his chin buried against his chest and his whole torso heaving. Thick, desperate pants characterized his breathing. As Maxine watched, he raised his right hand. It was clutching the decanter of gin, which met his lips. He threw his head back, and she could hear frenetic swallows. Her stomach roiled again. He had upchucked and _then_ started drinking? She had assumed it was the other way around.

"Al?" she said, raising her voice so as to be heard over the roar of the water.

He didn't seem to hear. He thrust back his head again, then moaned thickly. The bottle hit the floor of the enclosure with a jarring clang. Maxine flinched, but it didn't shatter as she had expected it to. Al raised his right hand in the same way that he had his left, and the panting worsened. There was something very wrong about the sounds. Maxine wanted to run. He was frightening her terribly, and yet she stood her ground. There was something wrong. Something very wrong. She couldn't leave him alone like this.

"Al?" she repeated. "Al, are you there?"

It was a stupid question. Obviously he was there. He was not answering, however. Maxine opened the door to the shower.

Al's eyes were closed against the water beating down on them. His body was still spasming against his arms, and his breathing was labored. The water was running full cold, and his lips were purple, his body covered in goose bumps.

"Al!" Maxine cried. "What are you doing?"

He definitely couldn't hear her.

Not knowing what else to do, Maxine reached into the shower and turned off the water. Al flinched as the barrage of fluid ceased. Then his arms flew spastically to clutch his chest as he began to shiver violently.

"Al?" Maxine said, softer now.

He turned to look at her, his dark eyes glazed and distant. There were two empty bottles on the floor of the shower. At least Maxine knew for a fact they had both been opened for a few days. She focused on Al, whose breath could be seen as a white mist for the first two inches out of his nostrils. He blinked through the water beading on his lashes. The veins stood out red around the deep brown of his irises. There was a strange, desperate look in his eyes.

"B-B-B-Beth?" he breathed through chattering teeth. His shaking hand raised itself to touch Maxine's cheek.

She wrapped her arms around him, guiding him out of the shower and holding him close. He was quaking horribly, and he did not resist as she pressed his head down against her shoulder. He was very cold, and the wetness of his body was soaking through her flimsy undergarments, but she didn't care. She was too anxious and scared.

"Al, what's wrong?" she asked.

A sound somewhere between a whimper and a moan escaped his lips. She rocked from side to side, backing up so that she could reach the towel rack. The large terrycloth rectangle was soon draped around the shaking shoulders, and she reached for another with which to dry his hair. As she released her hold, he moaned again, and clutched the front of her camisole as if he was afraid she would run away or disappear.

"It's okay," she said, ruffling his curls with the towel and rubbing his back with her other hand. "It's okay. I'm here. Max is here."

"Beth?" he repeated, his voice drunk and slurred.

"No, Maxine," she told him, puzzled and nervous. "Al, are you okay?"

His hand found her face again, and he looked up blearily. "You're here," he whispered with reverence. "You waited for me."

"Y-yeah, I'm here…" She was starting to shiver, too, and his shaking had not abated. She kissed his forehead, her nostrils flaring at the thick stink of liquor on his breath. "Lets get back to bed, huh?"

"Bed…" he breathed. "Bed… please, Beth, bed…"

He wasn't talking sense, but if he had emptied all four of those bottles he was drunker than Paul (lousy Oregon boyfriend number three) on Super Bowl Sunday. At least he wasn't violent. Maxine petted his face, wondering why the wetness here was warm instead of cold. "Yes, okay, bed," she said. "Come on."

He stumbled after her, clinging to her arm, still apparently unaware of his nakedness or the fact that he was still more wet than dry. Maxine spared a thought for the mess in the bathroom, but then decided that she could clean it up in the morning. Back in the bedroom, she induced Al to stand while she toweled down his legs, and then let him collapse onto the pillows. She stripped off her sodden lingerie and got in after him. He was still shivering, and he moved near to her, clutching at her waist.

"Beth, I love you," he breathed, his mouth searching drunkenly for hers. She kissed him. Suddenly, his eyes flew open. "You're not Beth!" he wailed. "You're not Beth! Who are you?"

Maxine swallowed hard. What was wrong with him? (He was drunk, her mind told her. He was totally wasted.)

"Who are you?" Al sobbed, reaching for her hair. He frowned. "Ruthie?"

She shook her head, too taken aback to speak. Al's hand moved to her shoulder. "Hannah… Danessa… Amanda… Jean… E… El… Ah... Eh… Someone. Paulette…" He threw back the covers and stroked her navel, shaking his head with his brow furrowed in inebriated confusion. "Wendy? Katherine? Nadine?" His eyes narrowed helplessly. Maxine could see the enormous effort that this puzzle was costing him.

"Sharon, Gina, Vivian, Annie" he recited as he fingered her hip. Then his eyes ran down the length of her legs, and up again. There was pain in them as he whispered the next name. "_Lisa?_"

He looked at her face again, and shook his head. With his hair dampened into curls, he looked strangely like a little boy lost among strangers. "Who are you?" he asked.

"M-Maxine," she stammered, her voice breaking a little.

There was nothing even remotely like recognition in his eyes as he reached for her neck and drew her seductively towards him. "Maxine," he mumbled. "Maxine, Maxine, Maxine, Maxine."

He kissed her collarbone.

"Maxine," he repeated. "Maxine."

His hand crept about her waist, and he looked at her again.

"God," he said softly; "you're beautiful."

Then his head fell back against the pillow, and he began to snore. Maxine sat very still, her exposed body shivering and her mind trying to ease itself with the reminder that he was very, very, very drunk. Finally, she was able to move again. She crept to the end of the bed and drew up the covers over herself and her unconscious husband. She lay very close to him, sharing what body heat he had until she began to warm up again.

It was a long time before she was able to fall asleep.


	12. Chapter Eleven

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Captain Calavicci looked like death warmed over.

He had come in twenty minutes late—something that hadn't happened since the collapse of his previous marriage—wearing mismatched street clothes instead of his usual immaculate uniform. Eyes deeply shadowed and face lined with stress or pain, he had only grunted at Eulalie's cheerful greeting and disappeared into his office. When she had brought in his paperwork he had been sitting hunched over his desk, head propped up with his left hand while his right was alternately working on the duty roster and feeding chewable antacid tablets into his pallid mouth. He had left his office three times in two hours, on each occasion visiting the bathroom and emerging even grayer than before.

Eulalie worried about him. He was a great guy—the best boss she had had in ten years of working for the Department of Defense. He was funny, charming and easygoing. Everyone loved him. He wasn't the sort of person who deserved tribulations of any kind, and yet that seemed to be precisely what he always got. His last marriage (his fourth attempt at matrimony, poor man) had been a nightmare. Something about it—no one knew what—had kept him from Starbright three days a week for months. Then had come the divorce, and everyone knew she had taken him for everything she could. As if it wasn't enough to take his money, she had fought for custody of the dog. After eight months in court she had _won_, too, and Eulalie knew he had taken that very hard. He had come out of the divorce financially and emotionally drained.

She knew he was short on funds, despite the fact that Naval captains and administrators of top-secret projects made quite decent money. When he had first come to Starbright, he had been driving a new Corvette. Now he had a fifteen-year-old motorcycle instead. He had had a brief rebound romance with Jean Talarski, the assistant manager of H.R. and the Project gossip. From Jean, Eulalie had learned that for a long time he hadn't even been buying groceries, relying instead on the free food served in the mess hall on Sub-Level Five. Jean also had stories (which were by now part of Starbright folklore) of weird, violent nightmares and a habit of using whisky of a sedative. This revelation had almost broken Eulalie's heart. It just wasn't fair that one stupid cow could cause such a nice guy so much unhappiness.

A month and a half ago, Mr. Penvenen from Human Resources had sent Captain Calavicci on an impromptu holiday. Eulalie had been very grateful. She was so glad that she wasn't the only one worrying about the Project Administrator. The captain deserved to have someone else looking out for his best interests, and Penvenen fit the bill perfectly. It had shocked everyone when Al had returned from this fortnight-long vacation with a new bride: a very pretty, very long-legged blonde who was less than half his age.

Eulalie quite liked Maxine. She seemed like a sweet, quiet little lady, and Captain Calavicci doted on her. He had seemed so much happier these last few weeks—until yesterday, when the new Mrs. Calavicci had been caught trespassing on Sub-Level Omega. Eulalie thought it was awfully sweet how he had championed his wife, even though she really should have known better than to poke around in restricted areas. She wondered if this morning's distress had anything to do with yesterday's trouble.

It was eleven o'clock: the time at which she usually brought him a coffee. Most days he would drink it, but there were times when he was so absorbed in his work that she would come in that evening—or the next morning—to find the mug still sitting there, untouched and tepid. Eulalie left her Smith-Corona and the report she had been composing, and went around the corner to the little kitchenette where a fresh pot of java was percolating. She poured out a serving and added three packets of Sweet 'N Low—just the way he liked it. Then she moved through the reception area again, and rapped on the door to his office.

"Oosere?"

"Eulalie," she answered.

"Eulie… c'min," he mumbled.

She opened the door and stepped into the office. He had turned off the overhead light, and the desk lamp was glowing dimly, its bulb covered by a handkerchief. Captain Calavicci sat at the desk, still clutching his head. He looked up and tried to smile.

"Hey."

"Are you okay?" Eulalie asked, setting down the coffee in front of him and feeling his forehead. It was clammy, but not warm. "You don't look so hot."

"That's 'cause that's your job, beautiful," he said, moving his hand to curl around the mug.

"Really, though, Captain, if you're sick…"

"I'm not sick," he protested. "I've just got a murderous headache. Couple more aspirin and I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" Eulalie asked. "Because Mr. Prysock and I really can handle things if you want to go lie down."

The captain shook his head. "No," he said. "No, I'm fine, really. Just fine."

Eulalie wasn't at all sure that that was the case, but she withdrew respectfully.

_MWMWMWMMWWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Eulie closed the door gently, but the click was too loud for Al's sore head. This was one hell of a hangover, he reflected as he bent over the mug, trying to sip from it without lifting it. He had only the faintest recollections of how it had happened.

It was Maxine's fault, he thought meanly. She had spoiled the fun of his nightcap with her talk about drunkenness. Stupid woman. He never should've let her get to him.

That wasn't fair, he realized a moment later. Max had only been trying to make conversation. It was his _own_ damned fault for neglecting to take the proper measures to stave off the dreams.

He couldn't quite remember what he had been dreaming about this time, but he knew it had to have been the Bitch, because of the small, nauseating knot of shame that formed in the area of his spleen at the thought. Something debasing, humiliating, heartbreaking… He remembered stumbling into the bathroom and vomiting up all that was in him to jettison, and then seeking a little liquid courage before trying to wash the misery away. Maxine… had Maxine come in? Everything was so muddled. The hangover was replacing whatever had happened, and he knew he should be grateful for that.

The coffee tasted like dishwater today. Eulie made great coffee, as a rule, but post-inebriated nausea knew no loyalties. Al forced himself to drain a third of the mug's contents, and then took out his hip flask and topped up the beverage with something stronger. He was running low. Might have to cut out early to replenish his supply.

God, his head was so sore.

Miserably, he took a long draught of the doctored coffee and tried to get back to work.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

"And if you have any questions at all, we're all more than happy to help," Dan Penvenen was saying. "May I add, ma'am, that I'm delighted Starbright is taking steps in this direction. I've felt that the recreational programs have been sorely lacking."

Mrs. Calavicci blushed a little, and Dan had to fight the treacherous thought that she was very beautiful. "Please," she said, "call me Maxine?"

"All right," he agreed. "Maxine." He indicated the desk that had been set up for Starbright's new Recreation Coordinator. "May I ask what sports you are thinking of organizing first?"

"Well," she said, "it's almost basketball season. And we could do badminton. I want to start slowly, you know…"

Her eyes wandered over the walls of the cubicle. She seemed oddly distracted: had been all morning. Dan frowned a little. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

She looked at him nervously. Something was, indeed, wrong, and he could tell that whatever it was, she wasn't sure she could trust him with the information. She covered her distress with a smile and shook her head. "No, of course not," she said. "What could possibly be wrong?"

"What indeed?" Dan said smoothly, pulling back a little. He was very good at reading people, and even better at manipulating them. This was the characteristic that made Human Resources such a perfect cover. "I never was very good at basketball, though I imagine you're excellent." He realized with a little jolt of horror that he had been looking at her long, athletic legs in their skintight spandex coverings.

"I'm not bad," she admitted. Again, her attention seemed to wander. "Mr. Penvenen…"

"Dan," he said. "Please call me Dan, Maxine."

"Dan," she said. "Dan, do you think I'm… do you think this is an important job? I mean, Al isn't just setting it up so that I'll have something to keep me out of trouble, is he?"

This was, Dan was ninety-two percent certain, precisely why Calavicci was doing this, but he wasn't about to alienate her. "Not at all!" he said. "Starbright needs to pay more attention to the physical and psychological needs of its staff. Healthy employees are happy employees."

"Uhm…" Maxine breathed. Her mind was obviously somewhere else.

Dan modulated his voice with care. It was the tone guaranteed to melt the wariest heart. "Maxine, I can tell there's something troubling you," he said gently. "Whatever it is, you shouldn't need to worry about it all alone. Let me help."

She turned to look at him. "I… I shouldn't say anything…" she hedged. "I mean, it's private…"

"Marriage can be a scary thing sometimes," Dan said. He didn't have the benefit of first-hand experience there: the very idea of marriage was frightening enough to ensure that. "It's hard to get used to identifying with another person on such a constant, intimate level."

"I know," Maxine said. "I just can't figure him out."

Dan nodded. "It took me a long time to figure him out, too," he said.

"You know Al well?" she queried anxiously.

Dan thought of the four and a half composition books full of character notes, detailed reports on unusual incidents, and gut feelings about the Project Administrator, and he had to fight back the smug smile that wanted to break free. "Yes," he said. "Very well."

"Oh," Maxine whispered, looking down at her hands. "Then you know… you know that he drinks?"

Dan counted to five so that he wouldn't sound too eager to collect whatever information she was about to give him. "Yes," he said somberly.

"Well… last night… last night I asked if he didn't think he should cut back," she murmured, pacing the small enclosure a little.

"And he got angry?" Penvenen asked gently.

"No… no, he just didn't have another drink. Then we… you know, and went to bed." She bit her lip, not meeting his eyes. "But I woke up in the middle of the night, and he'd emptied four bottles."

"_Four bottles_?" Dan was horrified at the incredulity that betrayed itself in those words. He reined his emotions in, schooling them sternly.

"Oh, not four _whole_ bottles!" she said hastily. "The whiskey was almost empty, and the bourbon couldn't have been more than half full. The vodka… I don't know, he doesn't usually drink vodka, but the gin was probably the fullest, and it was at least one-third empty when he started."

Dan whistled softly. "He must have quite the hangover."

"I think so," Maxine confessed. "He hardly talked to me before he went to work, and he didn't want breakfast. I just… I don't like him drinking so much, you know?"

"I know," Dan said, exuding so much false sincerity that he reflected he would have to tone it down or she'd see right through him. "It's hard to watch that."

"But I don't know what to do," Maxine confessed. "I've never really known anyone with a drinking problem before, and I don't want to make him angry. What should I do?"

She turned wide, innocent blue eyes on him. He felt a pang of remorse: the poor thing really did want to help her washed-up star jock of a husband. Then he suppressed it. The opportunity was too perfect to be ruined by misguided sympathies for the wife. He had been watching the man so carefully for so long—much longer than he was used to going without taking an active role in gaining the information he needed. This was an excellent chance to take a more active role. It would be very, very interesting to see how Calavicci, whose issues with alcohol were getting harder and harder to ignore, would cope with sudden, enforced abstinence…

"Don't worry," Dan said, smiling kindly. "I know exactly what you should do."

Maxine's face lit up with relief.


	13. Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

Al admitted defeat at three o'clock. Eulie—bless her heart—didn't ask a single question as he shuffled out of the office. He had tried, really tried to make it until five, but though the hangover had started to abate as the coffee did its work, he had emptied the last bottle in his little cache shortly after one. The shakiness had started around two, and the headache had staged a comeback not long after. Unable to cope with the cerebral pulsations and finding it harder and harder to concentrate, he had finally given up. He needed to get some sleep.

That was what he was doing, he promised himself as he shuffled to the elevator. He was going back to his quarters for some sleep—not because his flask was empty. Of course he wanted to treat the headache and the palsy, but he would do it by curling up in his nice, warm bed. That was what would help. He wasn't going to lunge for the liquor cupboard, because that wouldn't help. Whiskey wouldn't cure his ills. If he happened to take _a little refreshment_ before he went to lie down, that would be merely incidental. It wouldn't be the reason that he would start to feel better.

His mouth was dry: he needed a drink. Anyone in his position would do the same thing. It was only natural to drink something when you were thirsty. What he wanted to do was perfectly normal.

The hateful voice in the back of his head told him that this was anything but normal. He ignored it. He had to ignore it: it was the voice that told him malicious lies. Maxine didn't want him, he didn't deserve her, he was a failure, a waste of space, worthless—these were the falsehoods that this voice endorsed. It told him that the staff hated him, that everyone laughed at him, that he had no secrets, that he had no real friends. It claimed he couldn't trust anyone: not Maxine or Eulie, not Doctor Thorgard. Not Dan Pendragon—Penvenen from Human Resources. Not Les Davies, whom he had known for fifteen years. Not anyone.

It was a horrible, deceitful voice, and it was wrong. It had to be wrong. It just… it had to be.

Because if it wasn't…

No, he told himself. He was just tired, and a little ill. Should've taken a sick day in the first place, and just stayed in bed.

His hands were shaking, and he almost dropped his key, but then he was inside. He stumbled against the narrow entryway closet, and Maxine looked up. She was sitting on her sofa in the overcrowded living area.

"Al!" she cried, dropping the book she had been staring at and hurrying towards him. "Are you okay?"

She took his arm and he found himself leaning heavily against her. "Hey," he breathed, unable to say more.

Max pressed a cool hand against his forehead. "Are you sick?"

"No, just tired…" he exhaled in pathetic contentment as she stroked his cheek and curled her arm around his shoulders.

"Come on and lie down," she soothed, guiding him towards the bedroom. Her nose wrinkled, and he felt a jolt of panic. Did his breath smell like alcohol?

He tried to calm down. That was ridiculous. There was no way it did. He hadn't even had a drink for over an hour: there was no way she could know what he had been doing in the privacy of his office.

"Just a little farther," Maxine coached, walking him towards the bed.

Al felt a sudden burst of longing as the pillows came into focus. It was like the first time he had seen a glass of orange juice after repatriation, in the observation ward at Clarke Air Force Base in the Philippines. He felt a mingling of nauseating self-pity because he had been deprived of such a simple pleasure for so long, a debilitating craving for something he hadn't seen for ages, and a numb, fragile wonder that such things existed at all. His stomach shriveled in shame as he realized that he was on the cusp of tears.

Maxine didn't seem to notice his weakness. She let him melt onto the mattress, guiding his head towards the pillow. "You work way too hard," she said, her voice low and melodious. She ran one hand up and down the side of his leg while the other worked to remove his shoes. "You need to take better care of yourself."

Al wanted to reply, but his mind was occluded by a thick fog, and his eyes were starting to drift closed. Once his feet were bare, Maxine turned her attention on his belt and trousers.

"Is there anything you need?" she asked as she removed his tie, pausing to pet his face again.

"Aspirin," he whispered. "And a glass of whiskey."

She seemed to falter. "As-aspirin," she said. "Right away."

Then she was gone. Stripped down to his shirt and shorts, Al began to shiver. It was cold in here. He didn't feel well. He was so tired. He wanted Beth…

He couldn't have Beth, he told himself angrily. She was gone. Damn it, she had been gone for ten years—_fourteen _years, as far as she and the rest of the world that hadn't lost time in 'Nam was concerned! He should be over this by now!

A hot tear rolled down his cheek. He moved his hand to wipe it away. Misjudging the distance and unable to control his muscles adequately, he smacked his face painfully with his knuckles. Al moaned in frustration. It was the day from hell. Nothing was going right.

Nimble fingers navigated beneath his head, and Maxine's long arm lifted him into a semiprone position. "Here," she said, slipping a tablet between his teeth. "I brought you an aspirin."

A glass was raised to his lips and he gulped eagerly, fighting the disappointment when he realized it was only water. Still, he let it wash down the analgesic before pressing his lips together. Then Maxine moved him with assertive hands as she worked the bedclothes out from under him and tucked him in. The sudden warmth should have been welcome, but oddly, it only made his stomach more uneasy. He closed his eyes against a wave of nausea. Maxine's lips brushed his brow.

"You get some sleep," she said.

That was a great idea, Al thought blearily. Sleep…

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

When the first inebriated snore filtered from Al's nostrils, Maxine withdrew from the room and sat quickly in the nearest chair, her fingertips pressing against her mouth. He had been drinking all day! He smelled like a distillery, and he could scarcely walk unassisted.

She was so scared. He was hurting himself, and she didn't understand why. She wasn't even sure that he realized he was doing it, and that was maybe the most frightening part of the situation.

Maxine hugged her abdomen and tried not to cry as she remembered last night, when he hadn't even recognized her, groping through a litany of names without ever lighting upon hers. She felt somehow humiliated, as if her worth had somehow been diminished by the incident. She told herself that was silly: he had been drunk (dear God, he was _still_ drunk!) and he had had no idea what he was saying. Besides, she knew he'd had lots of women before her: she had known that right from the start. He knew she had had boyfriends, too. It didn't mean that they were any less important to each other. Still, though she knew it was selfish and unfair, she could not help feeling hurt.

At least after seeing him come home like this, having obviously been drinking all day (at work, she thought, scandalized), Maxine was more comfortable with her actions that morning. It had been weighing heavily on her conscience from the moment the deed was done, because after coming back to the suite with Dan's instructions fresh in her mind, she had poured the contents of every one of Al's bottles down the sink.

It had been hard to do: the neat rows of glass vessels had looked so innocuous. Classy, she thought, like a sideboard in a private library. There was something genteel and civilized about the display. She had stood before the cabinet in confusion. Al wasn't an alcoholic, a dirty rummy who drank anything that came to hand. He was very selective. All the liquor was of high quality, carefully chosen even if he had drained two of the bottles neat while standing in the shower. There was at least two hundred dollars worth of merchandise on those shelves.

What had enabled her to go through with it in the end was the recollection of Dan's assurance that this would fix things. "All he needs," Penvenen had promised, "is the removal of the temptation." Once the whiskey and the rest were gone, he had assured her that Al would be more than happy to stop drinking. He only felt he had to keep doing it because the alcohol was there: he had bought it and he felt an obligation not to allow it to go to waste.

It made sense, or at least it should have made sense. Somehow Maxine felt it could not possibly be so easy.

Anyway, she had done it, and there was nothing she could do now but wait and see.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Al was aware first of all of a thrumming pain coursing through his brain. He attempted to retreat into the cloistered recess of his mind where you could sometimes, if you tried hard enough, escape the torture for a little while. It didn't work. The throbbing agony wouldn't let go. He opened his eyes a little, and then screwed them shut again. The light filtering from the next room sent fire into his cerebellum this was one hell of a hangover.

He tried to remember something about the party, but he couldn't. What had he and Chip been up to this time? He hoped he wasn't supposed to be on duty right now. Commander Riker was hell on you if you turned up hung over—not really fair, because if anyone knew how to drink it was Commander Riker.

Al made another attempt to open his eyes, and this time he made it past the initial torment. For a second he was disoriented and a little frightened—this wasn't his room! Where was he? How had he got here? What girl had he come here with? Why couldn't he remember?

Then he caught sight of his dress whites, just visible where the closet door stood ajar, with the rank insignia on the epaulets, and he remembered when and who he was. Ruthie was probably upset with him: she hated it when he drank.

No, not Ruthie, he thought. Sharon. She'd be just as bad as him. He hoped she'd had the decency to let Chester outside…

That wasn't right, either, he realized. Not Sharon. Maxine. He'd come home from work with a queasy stomach and one hell of a headache. Slowly, cautiously, he sat up.

He was still hung over. How much had he had today? He couldn't remember. A whole lot in the middle of the night, after… he couldn't remember why. He had finished all he had at the office, too. God, he had to slow down. He hadn't had a binge like this since he'd lost Chester, and if he wasn't careful he'd wind up poisoning himself or something.

First, though, he needed a little nip of whiskey. His hands were shaking again. He tried to steady them, but this only seemed to aggravate the tremors.

"Damn," he muttered hoarsely, scrubbing his face with both hands. His chin was rough with stubble, and he realized he had neglected to shave that morning. Unsteadily, he got to his feet and made his way to the door. "Max?" he croaked, trying to make himself heard as he clung to the jamb.

She came around the corner from the direction of the kitchenette, her pretty face pale and fraught with worry. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Fine," he said. "I'm fine. I just need…"

He shook his head, unwilling to say it. It wasn't really a need, anyway. He _wanted_ a drink, but he didn't _need_ it. On the other hand, though, there was absolutely no reason why he shouldn't have one.

"I just need to slow down a bit," he finished.

Maxine smiled a little in relief. "I've already eaten," she said, "but I can fix you up some supper if you want."

"I'm not hungry," he said, moving into the living room and letting his eyes drift towards the cupboard that held his liquor. He wouldn't make the mistake of drinking as much as he had today at work: that only dragged out the hangover. He would just have half a glass of scotch. Well, maybe a whole glass, but only one.

"Oh, don't—" Maxine gasped, realizing what he was going to do, but his hand was on the knob and it was too late.

For a brief, disoriented second, Al thought he had the wrong cupboard. Then he turned towards his wife. "What the hell…"

"I…" She swallowed hard. "I got rid of it. You're drinking too much."

"You… you _what_?"

"You're drinking too much, and I thought—"

There was a split second before the anger welled up during which a tiny voice implored Al not to do this, but he was still on the drunk side and worn down by his headache. He slammed the door and began to tear into her. "Who asked you?" he demanded. "Is it any of your damned business how much I drink?"

Maxine's eyes went wide. "I—"

"You! Who the hell gave you permission to interfere? Who do you think you are, anyway?" he roared.

She stiffened as if she had been slapped. "I thought I was your wife!" she said abruptly, the look like that of a frightened rabbit vanishing in the face of indignation.

Al's throat went suddenly dry. Here he was, yelling at Max because he couldn't have a drink. Shame coursed through him and he began to shake. He cast his eyes down. What the hell was wrong with him? She was only trying to—

He banished the thought. He _did not_ have a drinking problem. He didn't, and damn it, he was going to prove it!

"I'm sorry, Maxine," he whispered, keeping the indignant anger buried as deep as he could. He had no right to yell at her like that. If this was what the liquor was doing to him then enough was enough: it was time to stop. God damn it, he was going to stop!

With a little plaintive sound deep in her throat, she hurried forward to embrace him. He forced himself to look at her. There were tears in her beautiful blue eyes. Al stroked her cheek. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "I shouldn't blow up like that. I just… my head hurts…"

She ran her fingers through his hair and kissed him between the eyebrows. "I know," she whispered. "I… are you… did I…"

"You shouldn't do things like that without discussing it with me," Al said, forcing himself to stay calm. After all, she had just made one dumb little mistake. He didn't need a glass of whiskey anyway. He didn't. He didn't.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Dan said—"

Al shook his head and pressed his lips to hers. "Forget it," he said, moving closer and reaching for the buttons of her blouse. His hands trembled, and he focused with all his strength of will on keeping them steady. "I don't need it."

He didn't. He didn't.

He didn't.


	14. Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

He didn't need it. He didn't. He didn't. Al repeated that affirmation like a mantra. He didn't need a drink. He didn't. It was just force of habit. Just a harmless craving like a desire for chocolate or something. He could take it or leave it. Alcohol didn't actually _do_ anything. It didn't actually _change_ anything. He didn't need it. He didn't. He didn't. He didn't. He hugged his knees to his chest and tried to stop trembling.

Maybe, if he thought it hard enough, it would be true.

Maxine was slumbering peacefully next to him. Al felt a gnawing envy overtaking him. Why could she lie there like that, sleeping like an angel, while he sat here trapped between the nightmares he knew were waiting for him, and the voices that wouldn't leave him alone? Right now, there were two: one whispering ominously but too softly for him to make out the words, and another promising that the first would go away if he just had a little drink. Al shuddered and screwed his eyes closed, shutting out the dim glow of the digital alarm clock in the otherwise black room.

Surely one night without nightmares wasn't too much to ask. Or was it? Did he really deserve any such thing? The memory of how he had bawled out Maxine for one little thoughtless action made him cringe in shame. Some husband.

'_You've always been a lousy husband!' _a mocking voice accused. _'Look at Sharon: boy, did you screw up that marriage!'_

That wasn't fair. She was the one who had cheated, not him. She was the one who had shacked up with that bricklayer right under his nose. It wasn't his fault. _'It wasn't my fault!'_

'_That's not true and you know it!'_ the voice cackled. _'You were never there for her! You never stayed home with her! Always running off to your precious Starbright, or spending time with Stevie—'_

'_But Stevie needed me,'_ Al protested, trying to defend himself. _'He could have died!'_

'_So instead you let Sharon die a little at a time? She helped you with _your_ problems; what the hell did you ever do about hers? No wonder she cheated on you, you selfish creep! I would have cheated on you, too!'_

'_No…' _The words hurt. Al pulled his knees closer, quaking and quivering and trying desperately not to.

'_And what about Ruthie?' _his tormentor went on. _'Perfectly normal, happy person until _you_ came along. Three months of marriage, and then what? She tried to kill herself!'_

That _definitely_ wasn't his fault. Ruthie had bipolar affective disorder. A Phenobarbital prescription had precipitated a depressive episode. It wasn't something you could control for: even her psychiatrist hadn't seen it coming. It was nobody's fault! Ruthie had never said a word of blame.

'_Of course she didn't! Ruthie wouldn't! Doesn't mean it isn't true. Why was she on the sleeping pills in the first place?'_

At the divorce hearing, her attorney had asked that question, too. Ruthie had told the judge it was because Al sang _Volare_ in his sleep.

'Volare_, ha! We both know what you do in your sleep, you stinking yellow coward, and _Volare_ has nothing to do with it! She needed those pills because you were forcing her to share your night terrors! _You_ drove her to it!'_

'_I saved her life!'_ Al protested.

'_Rescuing the baby bird doesn't count if you knocked it out of its nest with a rock first!' _When Al made no attempt to respond, the voice continued mercilessly. _'Your second wife, tell me… do you even remember why she divorced you?'_

'_Go away.'_ It was part command and part supplication. _'Leave me alone.'_

'_You _don't_, do you? She put you on the moon, and you don't even remember why she left you!'_

'_She didn't put me on the moon!'_ Al's mind cried indignantly. _'I got there myself! I did it myself!'_ There was so little he had done that he could be proud of, but making it to the moon was one thing. He had to cling to it. He had to believe he had actually achieved something.

'_Like hell you did. You were nudged along every step of the way. NASA paved the road in gold for you, and your wife kept you going when you tried to give up!'_

'_That's not how it happened! That's not how I remember it!'_

'_Remember it? You _don't_ remember it! You can't even remember her name. Can you? CAN YOU?' _the voice ridiculed.

The Hungarian… Al struggled to remember. The Hungarian…

'_And let's not forget about Beth!'_ The voice went on gleefully. _'Oh-ho, _that_ was a beauty!'_

'_No…' _Al pleaded. Why couldn't the voice have mercy? Couldn't it see he couldn't handle this?

'_Oh, _yes!_ Beth. All she wanted was a normal life. A family. A husband. You couldn't even give her that! No wonder she left you. No wonder she couldn't stand you. You selfish slob, no wonder she left you!'_

Al shook his head, rocking against the mattress. _'She didn't… she thought I was dead…I…I _was _dead…'_

'_Self-pity,' _the voice taunted. _'Save it. We both know you had it coming. You deserved it all. The beatings. The ropes. The tiger cage. The Bitch. You deserved every minute of it.'_

'_No! No one deserves that!'_

The voice laughed cruelly. _'No one but you! How does it feel, Scum? All those men who had to die, all those kids who had to be tortured just so _you_ could get what was coming to you? Those prisons that had to exist so you could start paying for your crimes?'_

Al felt a thrill of panic. _'You can't blame the war on me!'_ he cried in horror.

'_Can't I?'_

'_No!' _Al protested. _'No! I didn't start it! I—'_

'_Only fought it!' _The voice crowed. _'What more do you think you had to do? You think LBJ and Uncle Ho would have ever done anything if _you_ hadn't been willing to go out there and murder?'_

'_It wasn't me! It wasn't just me!' _Al cried. _'There were hundreds—thousands—'_

'_Give it up, Calavicci. Face facts. You deserved it then, and you deserve it now. All of it—and more! You _deserve _it!'_

Al stifled a scream as the memory of a rubber whip came down across his shoulder blades, stripping away a broad band of flesh. Panic gripped him. He was going to wake Maxine.

'_Just like you woke Ruthie! Until she needed pills! Until she tried to kill herself! Bet you Juan Penja never woke Sharon up with his screams! Bet the man the Hungarian's sleeping with now never has nightmares! And the lawyer—lawyers never dream, you know. Lucky for Beth she got away before you could foist this on _her_ like you forced it on the rest of them! She deserves better than that! She deserves a man, not a coward. It's better for her that she left you!'_

Another blow fell and Al fought to stay silent. _'Stop,' _he begged_. 'Please, please go away!'_

'_I don't want to,' _the voice said. _'I don't want to go away, and _you _don't want me to, either.'_

'_I do. I do want you to go away.'_

'_Do not. You like it. You're enjoying it!'_

'_I'm not!'_ Al protested, flinching as yet another lash landed. _'I hate it!'_

'_You love it. You love every minute of it.'_

'_No… no, stop! I want it to stop!'_

'_No you don't! Because if you did, you'd make it stop!' _the voice told him.

'_I'm trying…_' he sobbed silently, clinging to his legs and trying not to cry out.

'_You aren't. You know how to stop it, and you won't even do it! You won't even try!'_

Al shivered. He didn't know how to stop it. If he had, he would have ended it by now. No matter what the voice said, he didn't like this. It was horrible. It was hell.

'_You know what you have to do. All you have to do. Just a little whiskey, and I'll go away forever.'_

'_No. I don't need that stuff.'_

'_You do! You do! You need it. You know you need it.'_

'_No, no…' _Al whimpered, but deep inside he knew that, if it would make this voice go away, he did need it after all.

He was shaking so hard that the whole bed was quivering. He knew there was nothing there, but regardless, another sickening smack rang in his ears and his back burned with the agony of the rubber whip. Al scrambled away from his imagined assailant, shooting right off the bed and landing on his knees on the carpet. He crouched there, one hand splayed on the floor and the other clutching his stomach. He couldn't wake Max. He had to stay quiet. He didn't want her to see him like this.

Fighting the phantom pain and trying to swallow the humiliation only intensified by the voice, still mocking him, he crept across to the closet and dug out his bathrobe. Covering his body did something to restore a little confidence, and he cinched the sash as tightly as he could, arranging the garment around his legs. He crawled through the darkness until his hand lit upon a sofa. There was no bedroom door, since the suite hadn't been designed with communal living in mind, and so the luxury of a light wasn't attainable. Al got up onto shaky legs, using the sofa as a crutch. Another tremor ripped through him as he staggered towards the bathroom.

'_That's right, try and hide!'_ the voice laughed. _'I'll find you anyway! You can't hide! There's only one way to make me go away!'_

"No," Al whispered, dimly aware that he was speaking aloud. He didn't need a drink. He just had to wash his face.

He closed the door and turned on the light. His pupils contracted and he squinted instinctually. He didn't need a drink.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the change, Al was able to start up the warm water. He scrubbed his face with his hands, and reached for the soap. As he worked, he found himself relaxing. Finished with the washing, he reached for his shaving mug and began to whisk it. He glanced at his reflection: pale face, red, shadowed eyes. Ugliest thing he had seen in a while. At least a shave would help, he promised, applying the surfactant to almost forty-eight hours' stubble. He ran hot water over his razor and began on the left side.

Suddenly a broad red stripe was spreading over the white mask. Pain shot up Al's jaw. His hand, shaking more than ever, dropped the razor. Damn it, he was bleeding!

He groped for a square of toilet paper and tried to stem the flow. It was a long cut: almost an inch. The trembling worsened. His knees were shaking and he could feel his shoulders quivering too. A spasm tore through his abdomen, and he closed his eyes.

Then he heard it.

Nights brought respite from the torture. The endless harassment of the village children would end. The guards would usually leave you alone. If you could forget about your empty stomach and the pain of the last torture session—if you could find a comfortable position despite whatever irons, manacles or ropes you happened to be wearing—if it weren't too bitterly cold or too stiflingly hot—if the stars were aligned in your favor, you could maybe sleep a little. But there was something else that owned the night. Rats.

They weren't so bad at times, when you were more or less whole, and when food was plentiful for the village (though not for the prisoners: never for the prisoners). But when you were weak and they were hungry…

Al held his breath and tried not to move. They would eat at your wounds. With your feet bolted together and your hands shackled behind your back, you couldn't fight them off. And rat bites… they always became infected. Always. Sometimes they'd kill you…

He could hear them, tiny feet scrabbling and squeaky voices calling to one another. And he was bleeding…

His eyes shot open and he looked around. He couldn't see them, but he knew they must be close at hand. He held his breath, listening. Outside the door. They were just outside the door.

'_There's nothing there, Calavicci!' _the voice taunted. _'It's all in your head! It's all in your head! You're going crazy. You're losing your mind!'_

"Stop it!" Al cried. "Stop it! Shut up! I've got more important problems right now!"

They sounded hungry. God, and there was nowhere to hide. It wouldn't be long before the first mangy body squeezed under the door. Al backed against the wall next to the toilet, shaking worse than ever. Oh, God, oh, God, they were coming.

A weapon. He needed some kind of weapon. His razor was no good: it was a damned safety razor. Was there a knife or a pair of surgical scissors in the medicine cabinet? He thought he had a first aid kid around here somewhere…

Al almost ripped the cupboard door off the wall in his haste. The voice was still jeering in his ear, louder and louder. He could feel insects crawling over his feet and up his legs, probably trying to escape the rats. The rats. He could hear them so clearly.

'_They'll eat you alive, Calavicci!'_ the voice roared, laughing maniacally. _'They'll eat you alive, and the pain will drive you mad, and you deserve it! You deserve all of it!'_

With hands now quivering so violently that they were scarcely usable, Al began to rummage through the contents of the cupboard. Maxine's little red bottle of Tylenol flew from his shaking fingers. He pushed the nail clipper out of the way. Toothpaste. Lipstick. A vial of iodine. Nothing to help him, nothing to save him…

His left hand convulsed at the wrong second, and the two bottles of peroxide shot out of the cupboard, hitting the floor and rolling behind the toilet. With a curse, Al bent to retrieve them. He couldn't stand disorder. Why the hell couldn't a house be clean? Put things back where you got them, was that so damned hard? He could hardly set them back on the shelf, the brown bottle and the transparent one.

Transparent, the chemist in him thought scornfully. What kind of idiot put peroxide in a transparent bottle? It was nothing but water by now! What a scam!

He looked at it again, and suddenly his trembling hands were struggling with the child-proof cap.

It wasn't peroxide. The brown bottle was, but not this one. This was rubbing alcohol. Ninety-five percent ethanol. A pint bottle more than half full.

'_That's right!' _the voice cheered. _'That's right, you dirty drunk!'_

Al didn't care. It had to stop. He couldn't take it anymore. The rats were gnawing on the door now. Any second and they'd be in. He was shaking so badly he could hardly stand. And the voice wouldn't shut up! He couldn't take it any more! He couldn't!

Finally, the cap gave way, and he was it. He sealed his lips around the mouth of the bottle and threw back his head. His eyes watered and his throat contracted. His gums began to burn, and he felt the fire sink through his chest. He had to stop to gasp and cough. Oh, God, it was awful! He'd never tasted anything so horrible. The sharp, chemical sting made his head reel. But then he raised it to his mouth again, and drained the bottle. With a frantic wheeze, he let the empty vessel fall to earth. He stood there, panting, the back of his hand pressed to his mouth in discomfort and horror. He'd done it. He couldn't believe he had done it. He looked around the little room, glancing at the crack under the door.

At last there was silence.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Doctor Thorgard folded his hands and sighed. "There it is," he finished. "As I said, it's nothing more than a hunch, but I thought someone ought to know. I didn't want to bother Captain Calavicci with it, not when he's already had such a difficult week."

"You did the right thing," Phillip Prysock assured him. "I really appreciate the heads-up. You know more about the scientific community than I do, Doctor. How hard would it be to replace her?"

"She's irreplaceable," the aging scientist said honestly. "If there's a quantum physicist out there more brilliant than Donna Eleese, I haven't met her."

"Or him," Phillip said.

Thorgard inclined his head, smiling a little. "We can hope it's nothing more than an old man's paranoia," he said. "In any case, I would hate for her to take you quite by surprise."

"Realistically, could we…" He faltered, not quite sure how to phrase the question in a politic manner.

Thorgard graced him with an understanding smile. "Continue to function with a somewhat less gifted Head of Omega?" Phillip nodded gratefully. "I imagine we could," the older man said. "Though I am certain Donna would be sorely missed."

Phillip was not quite so certain. Though he did try not to pass judgment on people, he had never much liked Doctor Eleese. He found her cold and rather vindictive, and he was quite sure that the majority of the staff felt much the same way. Nevertheless, he nodded gravely. "She's been invaluable."

"She's been," Thorgard said, "with Starbright from its inception. It would be quite the adjustment if she did decide to—"

The telephone cut them off. Phillip excused himself apologetically and picked up the receiver. "Prysock," he said. Unlike his superior, he did not have an outside line: only the intra-Project phone.

"Phil?" a familiar voice, more dysphonic than usual, inquired.

Phillip gnawed his lip. "Al," he said.

"You're making an early start," the Project Administrator observed.

Phillip glanced at his watch. It was a quarter past eight. The day started in fifteen minutes—and the captain was usually here by now. "A concern came up at breakfast," he said truthfully. "What can I do for you?"

"I need to go into town," Calavicci said. He sounded awful. "I won't be in the office this morning."

"Will you be back this afternoon?" Phil queried, wondering why Al would call him. Usually such matters went through Human Resources.

"I dunno… Phil, if my wife's looking for me, tell her I took her car and I went into town, okay? I'll be back when I'm back."

"Sure, Al, but—"

The line went dead.

With a small sigh, Phillip set down the receiver. Thorgard was watching him quietly. The Deputy Administrator pinched the bridge of his nose. "Uh, Doctor," he said hesitantly. "When you said Al had been having a difficult week..."

Thorgard stroked his beard. "It seems that Mrs. Calavicci was detained by Colonel Smythe after she was caught on Sub-Level Omega."

Phillip frowned. "_What_?"

"Donna was very upset," Thorgard said mildly. "She has taken a more positive view about something, at least."

"Ms. Pharris is worried about him," Phillip said. "She thinks he must be ill or something."

"He could be," Thorgard said. "He works very hard."

"And I… do you think maybe he drinks too much?" Phillip inquired softly.

Thorgard's customary expression of passive optimism didn't change at all. "I think that's really none of my business," he said. "If you're worried about his health or concerned about his behavior, talk to him about it. But don't talk to me, or to anyone else."

Phillip flushed in shame. Of course, the chemist was right. Of all the unprofessional things to do, gossiping about a colleague was one of the worst. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have said…"

"No," Thorgard agreed mildly. "No, I don't think you should have, but I promise it goes no further." He got to his feet and paused with his hand on the doorknob. "He's a good man," he said. Then he left the room.

Phillip sat in silence for a moment, then shook his head. Time to get back to work. If he was the senior man on staff today, the least he could do was keep everything running as it should.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Mrs. Calavicci was leaning on the wall, watching as the Human Resources secretary Xeroxed copies of her intramural sign-up sheets. Dan Penvenen straightened his tie and approached.

"Well?" he said pleasantly.

She turned with a little jolt of surprise. "Mr. Penvenen!" she said.

"Dan," he corrected. "Did everything go well yesterday?"

Her face blanked for an instant, before it all came back. "Oh, that! Yes, yes, I did just what you said and poured it all down the sink."

"And?"

"And, nothing," she said innocently. "Why? Should something have happened?"

Dan felt the first inklings of disappointment. "He wasn't angry?"

"Well, maybe a tiny bit," she admitted. "But, I mean, we love each other."

"He didn't yell?"

She smiled and shook her head. "Not really. He took it really well."

Damn it. "He didn't hit you?"

Something flashed in her eyes. "Al wouldn't do that!" she snarled.

"No… no, of course not," Dan chuckled. "Of course he wouldn't. So he wasn't shaking?"

She shook her head, picking at one shocking pink fingernail.

"Any nightmares?" he pressed. For crying out loud, a man who drank as much as Calavicci had to have _some_ kind of symptoms of delirium tremens!

"Yes, sometimes," she said absently.

Dan frowned. "I'm sorry?"

"Sometimes he has nightmares. But not last night."

"So what happened?" He was too frustrated to bother with subtlety.

She flushed a little, very becomingly. "That's an awfully personal question, Dan," she giggled. Then she took her sign-up sheets from the secretary and left the room.

Dan suppressed the annoyance that wanted to consume him. Control over one's emotions was of paramount importance. He'd get Calavicci anyway, sooner or later.

And maybe he _would_ drag that overgrown cheerleader down, too.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Maxine made her way back to the suite on Sub-Level Three. It had been a very good day. She had spent most of the morning on a stationary bicycle upstairs, and then settled nicely into her work. She had been Freshman Rec Rep back in high school, mostly because every boy who knew her had voted for her, and this was a reminder of what she had loved about that. There was a lot of interest in the intramurals, and it wouldn't be hard to get a couple of friendly round robins going. Then she was thinking of planning a dance or something for September. The summer was running out fast, and she thought that was as good an excuse for a social gathering as any.

Al had slept through the night yesterday, and had been sleeping soundly in the morning when she left their quarters as well. She had been so scared that he might have trouble with her getting rid of his alcohol like that, but really, he hadn't been very angry. It was so nice of Mr. Pen—of Dan to be interested in her little problem. It seemed like an awfully little problem now, when the confrontation was over instead of looming ominously ahead.

She dug about for her key, and opened the door. In the living room, Al hurriedly replaced one of his science texts, whirling away from the bookshelf.

"Max!" he gasped.

"Yes, it's me," she said cheerfully. "What are you doing in so early?"

"I wasn't working today," he said. There was a hunted look in his eyes, and as she drew nearer, he evaded her, moving into the kitchenette in what he seemed to think was a casual manner.

"Oh… does that mean you'll be working this weekend, then?"

Al shook his head. "Doesn't work that way," he said. "I'll pull some extra hours next week. Can't work tomorrow anyway: I'm going to visit Stevie and Celestina."

"Again?" Maxine asked.

"What do you mean, 'again'? I visit them every Saturday. Would've stopped in today instead, but Celestina's working, so—"

"You went into town?" Maxine inquired abruptly.

"Yeah," Al said. "I felt like it. Listen, whaddaya say I change into something more practical, and we go try out those roller skates of yours? You haven't even put them on yet!"

"Okay," Maxine said, a little surprised. Why had he gone into town? Suddenly, a possibility occurred to her, and she felt her stomach do a quick flip. "I'll get ready," she said with forced cheer.

Al disappeared into the bedroom, and she hurried to open the liquor cupboard. The burst of vindication was followed closely by relief. He _had_ stopped by a liquor store… but all he had bought was a half-bottle of tequila, which surely had to go with the dish of fresh limes on the counter, and two bottles of Chianti, all of which were still sealed. She felt a flush of pride visiting her lips. She had done it! It had worked! Just like that!

She hurried to change into a leotard and shorts.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

The Starbright gymnasium was equipped to accommodate three consecutive games of badminton. The six steel poles could be brought out and set in anchor-holes in the floor. They had hardly ever been used, though it was likely that they would be seeing more action quite soon. Al hoisted the last of them into place and surveyed the result with satisfaction. Half a dozen handholds spreading the length of the gym in alternating distances. It could only have been better had they been staggered.

He dusted his hands on his track pants and looked across the large room, where Maxine was sitting on the bottom step of the bleachers, strapping on her brilliantly colored elbow pads. "You ready?" he called.

"Not quite!" she squealed. There was anxiety in her voice.

"Aw, c'mon. You look great! Stand up and skate to the nearest post!"

Maxine took a deep, bracing breath. Al expected her to get to her feet right there and launch herself forward, maybe a bit awkwardly, but she didn't. Instead, she lifted both knees so that her skate-clad feet hovered just above the floor, and used her arms to propel her as she scooted down to the edge of the bench. Using the bleachers as leverage, she very, very carefully stood up. Her knees quivered a little, and she gripped the fifth seat with all her might.

"Attagirl!" Al cheered. "Now come on: let go!"

She shook her head. "No way!"

Al laughed a little. "C'mon, you can do it!"

"I can't, I'll fall," she protested.

"You're not going to fall," Al said.

"I will, as soon as I lift my feet I'll fall!"

He chuckled and started to walk towards her. "I thought you wanted to do this."

"No," she said, her lips puckering into a sulk. "No, I said I wanted to be in the roller derby. I never said anything about wanting to skate."

"Can't have one without the other, doll," Al told her. "Come on, keep your feet on the ground and just push off. Those things have got the best bearings money can buy: you'll roll fine."

Maxine shook her head. Her long legs quivered again, and she squeezed her eyes shut. "I can't do it."

"Sure you can." He was six feet away now, and he stopped.

"I can't," she repeated. "I can't: it's too far."

Al held out both hands. "Then just skate to me," he said. "I won't let you fall, I promise."

She looked at him. "Promise?"

"Didn't I just say I promise?" he asked, snapping his fingers with his arms still outstretched. "Come on, try it."

She took a deep breath, and then hesitated again.

"Just _try_ it," he said.

She bit her lip, obviously trying to steel her courage.

"Let go!" Al reiterated. Then he cleared his throat and put on his best imperious commander voice. "Let go right now!"

She pushed off and took two awkward, loping half-steps. He caught her just as her legs flew out from under her, gripping her around the chest while she cried out in alarm and wrapped her arms about his neck. Her feet slid in every direction, her legs flailing.

"Calm down!" Al said, fighting the urge to laugh. "Settle down and just try to get your feet under you." He hoisted as she made a valiant effort. After a little struggling, she finally managed to get herself upright, still clinging frantically to him. He could feel her heart beating frantically against the orange mesh shirt. "There!" he said. "That wasn't so bad!"

"Wasn't so bad?" she cried. "I could have been killed!"

He couldn't help laughing at _that_, just a little. "Talk about overreacting," he said, pecking her cheek. "Come on, let's try it again."

She shook her head, but did so with too much conviction. Her knees buckled and her legs warped, and he had to dive in to recover her again. Maybe, he reflected, as he tried to help her stand, this was going to be harder than he had thought.


	16. Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"My tushie hurts," Max complained as the Buick hit another bump.

Al didn't laugh, but it took effort. "I'm not surprised," he said. "It's a wonder your pretty little rump isn't six shades of purple."

"It _hurts_," she repeated.

"I can pull over and kiss it better if you want," Al offered.

Maxine huffed a little. "That's not necessary, thank you," she pouted primly.

They rode in silence for a while. Yesterday, they had spent three hours trying to get Max to travel more than two feet without going down in flames. She hadn't been exaggerating: she really _couldn't_ skate! It had had the potential to become a very stressful situation very quickly, but to do Maxine credit, she had kept right on trying. Instead of getting discouraged she had just come back for more. Her plaintive protestations about how she would fall and hurt herself had continued throughout, but after a while Al had realized that they were part of the game: she would voice her fears and he would refute them. Thus the initial squabbling had become a verbal ballet at the same time that the struggles to keep her upright were morphing into opportunities for close physical contact in an unusual setting. Fun and unbelievably kinky.

When they had finally given up and returned to their suite tired, sweaty and bruising, it had been impossible to tell who was laughing the hardest. They had showered together and done their… wind-down exercises as all good athletes should. Then they had fixed supper together: Calavicci taco salad with scratch margaritas and fruit cocktail à la Maxine for dessert.

Even now, the following morning, Al was amazed at how the simple act of preparing a meal had eased his aching heart. He had had no control over what he ate for months—not since the post-divorce economy drive that had made him rely on the cafeteria staff, and then Maxine's cooking—and he had not realized how heavily that had been weighing on him. Eating something you had chosen of your own volition and prepared with your own hands was an incredible act of liberty. The freedom to eat what and when you wanted had been one of the hardest things to adjust to after six years of captivity, and obviously he was still amazed by it.

He didn't care how pathetic it was to be so excited about cooking supper. After the disastrous events of the other night, Al had been in sore need of some kind of affirmation, however small. Just the thought of the irrational terror that had so completely consumed him made his innards writhe with humiliation. What the hell had happened to him, that such a stupid little thing could set him off?

One thing was certain: he wasn't going to make the mistake of going without a drink again.

The outskirts of Wickenburg were materializing on the horizon. Al glanced at Maxine, who was fixing her hair in the passenger mirror. He wasn't going to make the mistake of letting her catch him at it again, either.

"I'm glad you decided to come," he said, not wanting her to perceive what he was afraid might be painfully obvious.

"Just remember you promised we weren't staying for supper," Maxine warned, still preoccupied with her reflection. "I need to get groceries."

"Yes, ma'am," Al said. He had not really wanted to make that concession: his time with Stevie was precious. Still, Maxine was his wife, and he had to try to think about her needs too. He had to try to be a better husband, even though he knew he was going to fail. He always did.

"Good. Don't forget."

Al laughed a little at the admonition in her voice. He'd never forgotten anything she had told him yet. "Scout's honor," he said.

"You were never a scout," she challenged.

"No-o," he admitted. "But I flew reconnaissance planes during the Cuban Missile Crisis."

She perked up, turning to face him. "Really?" she asked "Where?"

"Cuba," he said. "Where else?"

"That musta been scary," she said.

"As hell," he admitted, enjoying the way she cuddled closer to him. "Of course, the one who was really scared was Beth—"

His throat contracted. Damn.

"Beth?" Maxine parroted.

Damn, _damn_.

"Who's Beth?"

Al glared at her. "Aw, c'mon. Do I ask _you_ about every guy you mention in passing?" he demanded.

"Yes," said Maxine candidly.

She had him dead to rights. Instinct told him he needed to blow her off. He had been thinking about Beth way too often lately. The thought of the other night sent a shudder up his spine.

"Well, now you know you don't have to answer me," Al said firmly, focusing on the road instead of the hurt in his young bride's eyes. He pulled up in front of the little trailer. "Here we are. Why don't you go in and say 'hi' to Celestina. Stevie's probably around here playing."

"He was sleeping last time," Maxine pointed out.

"Just go and say 'hi' to Celestina and I'll eliminate this possibility first," Al told her.

She frowned pensively. "But wouldn't it be easier just to ask her—"

Al shot her a withering look and she got out of the car. He did the same, but far more slowly. As she turned towards the tiny residence, he started reaching into his back pocket. The door opened and Celestina greeted Maxine, who cast a nervous glance over her shoulder at Al. He grinned and offered her a thumbs-up with his free hand. She vanished inside. As quickly as he could, he unscrewed the cap of his flask and knocked back a third of its contents. No sooner had he returned the vessel to its place than the door to the trailer opened and Maxine leaned out.

"I told you so," she said in annoyance. "He's still in bed."

Al grinned and shrugged, trying to hide the anxious hammering of his heart. "So you're psychic," he said. "Don't brag about it."

She rolled her eyes and withdrew into the trailer. Al locked the car and followed her. Celestina was waiting to greet him, and he hugged her fondly.

"Mithta Al!" Stevie cried, sitting up suddenly. Al laughed and slid onto the thin mattress, embracing his little buddy.

"Hey, sport!" he said.

"Hey!" Stevie agreed, climbing into his lap and looking at the floor. "Chethter?" he queried. Before Al could try to explain—_again_—that the dog was gone, the boy spied Maxine. "Hi, lady!" he called, waving one chubby hand.

Max smiled a little. "Hi, Esteban," she said shyly.

"That's Maxine," Al told him. "My wife Maxine."

"Mack-theen," Stevie said. His brow crinkled in puzzlement. "Auntie?"

Al flinched involuntarily. For some unknown reason, the child had called Sharon "Auntie" almost from the first day he had met her. Ironic, in retrospect. "Maxine," he repeated flatly.

"Mack-theen, Mack-theen," Stevie said. He cuddled close to Al, plucking at the ragged t-shirt that served him as pajamas. "I goed to thkool, an' we had muthic time."

"Music time?" Al said. "That sounds like fun."

"Yup, yup," Stevie said, wriggling a little against Al's chest.

"Did you sing?" the Naval officer queried, taking the clothing from Celestina and commencing the child's morning toilette.

Stevie shook his head. "We played," he said.

"There wath recorderth an' drumth, an' Mandy playded the piano. The 'phoneth got all took out!" Stevie clapped his hands. "I love the phoneth tho-o-o-o-o-o much!"

"Phones?" Al glanced at Celestina.

She shook her head. "He says and says it," she murmured, "but I do not understand."

"Tell me about the phones," Al prompted.

Stevie's face lit up enthusiastically. "I like 'em!" he said. "Big and little oneth. I like the big red one! It makes alotta noithe!" He thumped the blankets several times in succession. "I like it a lot!" He started to hum dissonantly as he continued to bang the bedding.

"Xylophone!" Maxine exclaimed. She flushed a little as Al glanced up at her. "He's talking about xylophones," she said quietly.

"Yup!" Stevie said, bouncing against Al's legs. " 'Phones!"

"I see," Al said, trying not to wince as the boy's thin pelvis and sharp tailbone hammered repeatedly against his own poorly insulated legs. "That sounds fun."

"I wanted to play it," Stevie said. "Mith Harvey thaid no."

"Miss Harvey said _no_?" Al echoed. "Why?"

"I too loud," Stevie confessed. "I do it all wrong."

"What? No you don't!"

"Yup," Stevie said sadly. "Too loud: all wrong."

"Didn't she let you play anything?" Al demanded, beginning to get angry.

"Yeah," whispered Stevie. He snuggled closer, seeking consolation in the wake of one of childhood's tragedies within the circle of the adult's caring arms. "I playded the triangle."

His disappointment was obvious, and Al was beyond anger now. He hated it when people treated kids like Stevie as if they were nothing but surplus. The taunts of other kids were bad enough, but when adults, especially those in fiduciary relationships like teachers or priests, started to shunt the child to the side, doing everything they could to minimize the so-called disruption that such kids could cause, it made him sick. Absolutely sick. So what if Stevie played loudly and badly? As long as he were happy, having fun and for a few minutes enjoying the chance to be a kid—not a _dummy_, not a _monkey-face_, not a _retard_ or a _problem_—what did it matter?

"I'll tell you what," he said, jiggling the child a little and hugging him more tightly. "You and me are going to make some instruments, and we can have our own music time, okay?"

Stevie's smile would have been worth a much more onerous task. "Yup!" he crowed.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Maxine stood back and let Al load the groceries into the trunk of the Buick. They had had a nice visit at the Penjas, but honestly, she was glad it was over. She felt so awkward and out of place there, with the boy Al obviously loved, and the sweet and quiet but almost worshipful woman who fussed over the captain with such intensity. Max didn't know what to make of it, and she definitely couldn't see how she belonged. If they had been Al's family she would have known what to do. She had dealt with boyfriends' families before, though admittedly not exactly in-laws. What it boiled down to was that your fella was stuck with his parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and crazy grandparents, but he had _chosen_ to be with you. That gave you a certain amount of status, and privileges came with the rank. In this case, Al had chosen Celestina and Stevie, too. He had merely chosen them to fill a different part of his life than Max did, and he had chosen them before he had chosen her, and she just didn't know where she fit in.

It would have been easier, except that while they were there, Al was always completely focused on the child, not taking the steps to put Maxine at ease that he usually did when they were in other company. Without his cues on how to act, she found herself passing most of the time with her hands in her lap, watching the scene in her peripheral vision.

Esteban seemed much more comfortable with her now, and she wasn't sure how she felt about that. He was a nice kid, she guessed, but she would be lying if she said she felt at ease around him. Aside from the way her husband doted on him—which was in itself kind of weird—there was his… well, the way he was. Maxine had never really had contact with retarded kids before, and she found herself wanting to stare at the strange shape of his eyes, so out of place in a Hispanic face, and the truncated limbs. When she caught herself in the act, she felt petty and hateful, ashamed of her curiosity. He was just like other kids, really. Other kids five or six years younger than he was. That was a little confusing, and anyway, it was strange to hear yourself called "Mack-theen". She didn't think she liked the way he mispronounced her name, making her sound like a space alien or a football player. She wanted to suggest he just call her Max, which would probably be easier for him to say, and would be more friendly to boot (after all, he said "Al", not "Albert"), but she wasn't quite brave enough.

"That's the last of it," Al said, closing the trunk with a slam. He fingered the rusting finish. "You know, you really should do something about this bodywork," he said.

"You want to pay for it, that's fine with me," Maxine told him, rounding the vehicle and climbing into the passenger's seat. Al must've dropped something, because he ducked behind the car, out of sight of the rearview mirrors. A minute later, he stood and got in next to her.

"Just making an observation, beautiful," he said, pecking her on the cheek. She thought she smelled the faintest hint of bourbon, but of course that was impossible.

Al fired up the engine, and the city limits approached. Abruptly, he turned into another parking lot. Maxine frowned. "What are we doing here?" she asked.

"Just need to pick something up," Al told her and he climbed out. Max undid her seatbelt and leaned forward on the dashboard, watching as Al entered the convenience store. The clerk behind the counter was a middle-aged woman with a wispy knot of gray hair. Al seemed to be flirting with her: she laughed as she bent to retrieve something from under the counter. Then money was exchanged and Al came out carrying a brown paper bag.

"What's in there?" Max asked as he got in again. In answer, he handed her the bag and returned to the highway. Maxine reached in and drew out a small red package that weighed more than it looked like it should. She frowned. "Shells?"

"Bullets," he corrected.

Maxine's stomach did a somersault. "Why do you need bullets?" she asked hoarsely.

"They're for my six-shooter," Al said. "You knew I had a revolver?"

"No…"

"Oh. Picked it up when I was stationed in New Orleans," Al told her. "I knew this quick-draw artist…" He stopped almost as if he were censoring the anecdote. "Best in the world," he finished. "I was thinking about her—the gun the other day. Getting an itch to give it a try again. I thought I'd see if I still have what it takes."

Maxine stared at the package of ammunition. Twenty-four bullets. The mass in her hand made her uneasy. "But where are you going to shoot?"

Al laughed. "Where there are Marines, there are firing ranges, my dear," he said. "Starbright's is out behind the hangars. If you're a good girl and practice your roller-skating, I might even let you try a couple of shots."

"No thank you," Maxine said firmly, replacing the bullets in the bag.

"That magazine's for you," Al said. "Thought you'd be interested."

Puzzled, she drew out the glossy periodical. It was a recent edition of Sports Illustrated. On the cover, in full-color glory, were two determined-looking women on roller-skates. The heading blazoned across their midriffs read: _Roller Derby—Not Dead Yet?_

She laughed and let the bag fall to the floor with a heavy clunk of the car as she hugged Al. "Thanks!" she enthused.

"Sure," he told her, shrugging off her excitement. "Just remember me when you're state champion."

Maxine laughed and curled up against the window to study the magazine while the sun still shone.


	17. Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

September meant visits from the Committee. Strictly speaking, any committee member could visit Starbright at any time. All had full clearance, and each could virtually shanghai the Project Administrator at a moment's notice. It was a clear-cut case of "them that have the gold make the rules", and Al couldn't help resenting it just a little. He might not have done so, except that Committee visits disrupted the workings of the Project for weeks, both before and after the fact. Fortunately, such excursions were usually concentrated in the ninth month: the deadline for requesting reports to be considered at the January funding review hearings was the first of October.

From the third week of August on, Al was up to his eyebrows in work. He found himself heading to the office early, and almost always staying late. He skipped meals when he could, and poured all of his energy into preparing Starbright for her distinguished guests.

Well, _almost_ all of his energy. He had to conserve some of it for home, after all. He would return to the suite each evening to find Maxine waiting for him like the angel she was. She was a lady of boundless creativity: each night she had a different game ready for them. There were the old standards: strip Scrabble, "doctor", hide-and-seek, and variations on the whipped cream theme. Even more exciting and delightful were Maxine's fresh innovations. The mint leaves had been just the beginning. The potential of molded Jello, for example, had never really occurred to Al before. There were experiments with the various pieces of furniture, and Maxine had a flair for improvising costumes. One night, Al came home to find her dressed as a forest ranger in one of his uniform shirts and a pair of his darkest green pants. A few days after that, she had been waiting for him in the kitchen wearing one of her fabulous neon-colored miniskirts, a pair of pipe-cleaner antennae, and some strategically placed tinfoil. Once she had even turned up in a pink baby doll, but he had made her take that off (earlier than usual). He didn't really want bedroom reminders of his last marriage.

Weekends were spent visiting Stevie and Celestina, trying to teach Maxine to roller-skate, and bingo-bango-bongoing to their hearts' content. Al hadn't yet had a chance to make it out to the firing range to work on his fast draw, but despite the mounting stress and the ever-growing workload, he found himself coping quite well. He had his secret stashes of liquid courage, both in his office and in his quarters, to bolster him through the day and insulate him at night. Maxine didn't know about that, and that was exactly the way it was going to stay.

Of course, it was taking more whiskey now than it once had just to keep back the dreams, but Al found himself holding his liquor better than ever. Sometimes his amber comfort didn't quite do the job, and the nightmares crept back, but when that happened he could always steel himself from the bottle now stashed behind his nightstand, and then wake Maxine for a little nocturnal passion. She was always willing to oblige, to pull him out of hell and back into the here-and-now, and to make him feel human again.

In short, Max was the best thing that had happened to him in a long, long time. Maybe, after sixteen years of lousy luck and shattered relationships, Al Calavicci's fortunes were finally changing.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

By a huge stroke of luck, the first member of the Committee to come calling was Congressman Lester Davies, Colorado. Les and Al went way back. They had met in '67 at Xom Ap Lo, the POW camp affectionately known as Briarpatch, situated thirty-five miles east of Hanoi. Al had some fond memories of the place, comparatively speaking. The camp had had, during his tenure, a prisoner population of just over a hundred, five and six men to a cell. There was little space for solitary confinement. There was no tiger cage. The camp commander had lacked imagination when it came to torture and interrogation techniques, so at least you knew what to expect. At the time, Al had found the lack of electricity and running water abhorrent. In retrospect, he had been nothing but a pampered first world prude.

Les had already been at Briarpatch for a month when Al had arrived, banished from the Hilton after a session on the stool had convinced the "V" that he was too inflammatory, too defiant and too dangerous to be kept in a large central prison. They had met in the Blue Room, where Les had been in the midst of a torture session when Al was hauled in for preliminary questioning. They had wound up rooming together for most of Al's brief stay. Al had nursed Les through the cholera epidemic, and been nursed himself after savage beatings and a nasty near-drowning. Then Quon had come, and taken Lieutenant Calavicci away, and he had never expected to see Les again. Then, shortly after coming onboard at Starbright, Al had met the Committee, and found that he had a friend on Capitol Hill.

The one trouble with Les was that lately he had developed a taste for reminiscing about the camps. Al didn't understand it. Why would anyone even want to think about what happened over there, let alone talk about it at cocktail parties throughout D.C., or phone up an old camp buddy to relive the horrors? However, Les was doing just that. The last year or so, all of their contact had taken the same line. Les wanted to talk about 'Nam. Al definitely didn't. They wound up doing an elaborate dance around each other, during which Al couldn't help feeling that the statesman was trying to wrangle some kind of admission out of him. That was ridiculous, he told himself. Les was his friend, his buddy—one of maybe three in the whole world—and he wouldn't try to trap him. Despite his conviction that this was nothing but paranoia, though, Al always left their encounters with the distinct impression that he had only just managed to skirt the pit.

The first words out of Davies's mouth when Al greeted him in front of the ground-level complex were not very encouraging.

"Well, if it isn't the Silent Warrior of Cham Hoi!" he exclaimed, extending his arm for a hearty handshake.

Al stiffened. He had heard that somewhere before, but he couldn't remember where. All that he knew was that he hated it. "Les!" he said, trying to cover his unease. "How are you?"

"Fine, fine. Couldn't be better," the one-time Naval pilot said, grinning enormously. "How's Starbright? I hope you're putting our tax dollars to good use?"

"That's your job to determine, isn't it?" Al countered.

Les laughed and clapped him on the back. "So it is," he drawled. His wife was the native of Colorado: he had been born to a wealthy Tennessee landowner, and he bore all the hallmarks of his Anglo-American breeding, from his straw colored hair now liberally flecked with gray, to his almost crassly bourgeois manners. "Let's get down to it, then."

They went first to the administration offices, where another awkward moment ensued. Al was aware that his war record was no secret. Everyone who had ever picked up an issue of a national magazine—from Time and Life to Mad and Playboy—during his time as NASA's mascot (most of 1976 and the first half of '77) knew that he had done time as Charlie's very special guest. Regardless, he hated it when people he knew, liked and worked with were compelled to dwell on the fact. He did his best to play down the reality of his incarceration, and on the occasions when details leaked out, he wanted nothing quite so much as a swift and painless death.

Eulalie was sitting at her typewriter, processing a transfer request, when the two veterans entered the outer office. She looked up briefly with her usual sunny, "Good morning, Captain!"

"Good morning!" Al said. "Eulie, you've met Congressman Davies?"

She removed her hands from the keys and smiled. "Yes, Congressman. Lovely to see you again: welcome back to Starbright."

"Thank you, my dear!" Les said, studying her assets delightedly. He and Al shared similar tastes, and though the captain was very careful to maintain an amicable but professional relationship with his secretary, the visiting politician was under no such restraints. "You look absolutely sensational today."

Eulalie blushed a little. "Thank you," she murmured, trying to focus on her work again.

"Les and I are very good friends," Al told her, trying to put her back at ease. Eulalie was on the shy side: though her interpersonal skills were excellent, it took her a long time to get used to compliments. "We've known each other for years."

The remark did seem to have the desired effect. Eulalie's shoulders relaxed a little. "That's lovely," she said earnestly.

"Isn't it?" Les said. The gleeful tone of his voice made Al's stomach shrivel. He had heard that voice before, at a disastrous reception in D.C. when Les had spontaneously launched into the story of that first damned interrogation session at Briarpatch, in horrible, graphic detail… "We were POWs together. That is, I was a POW. Al was MIA, of course—but you knew that."

"No," Eulie said softly, stealing a glance at her boss. "No, no, I didn't."

"He was. Everyone stateside thought he was dead. He almost wasn't repatriated at all," Les continued. "I don't think Charlie wanted to let him go. He was good sport for the t—"

"Les!" Al cried in horror, before the dreaded "t" word could come out. The last thing he wanted was for his sweet, innocent secretary to be thinking of him in those terms.

Davies turned on him with a mild, surprised smile. "Al?" he offered pleasantly.

Derailed by this absolutely unexpected and completely clueless response, Al stammered soundlessly. Shrugging, Les turned back towards Eulalie. "Anyway, he was good sport," he said. "See, the VC liked to 'punish' the defiant ones most of all, because when they finally broke it was a bigger victory. Not that they ever broke Al, though."

"No?" Eulalie breathed.

The anxiety in her eyes was making Al almost physically ill. She didn't need this crap, damn it.

"Les…" he croaked helplessly.

The congressman continued happily, almost proudly. "No!" he boasted. "Not Al Calavicci! They threw everything they had at him and he didn't crack once! Of course," he added thoughtfully; "now and then he'd feed 'em some lies just to stop the pain, but I'll be damned—pardon me, ma'am, I'll be a monkey's uncle if he ever told 'em anything worth knowing!"

"Stop the pain?" gasped Eulie. She turned her anxious gaze on Al, pleading with him to tell her that this wasn't true, that Davies was exaggerating, that her boss had not been detained and tortured.

His chest flooding with the heat of shame, Al cast his eyes down. He couldn't bear the way she was looking at him: mingled consternation and pity, and under it all the realization that he wasn't quite the man she had thought him to be. He hated that look. It was familiar, and he hated it. All he ever wanted was to be just another guy: not different, neither special nor deviational. No matter what he did, he just couldn't achieve that. He was always the outsider. The "hero" or the "coward" or the "special case". The freak.

And, damn it to hell, Les was still talking.

"Nobody could take the pain all the time," he was saying. "After two or three days in ropes, or a week without sleep, when you're sick and starving and they've been beating you for hours, everybody reaches a point where they have to make it stop. The question is, when that happens, whether you'll have enough control left over yourself to lie, or whether you spill your guts like a traitor. Al was a liar. A real first-class liar. He could lie his way out of anything. Didn't matter if he—"

Al's hands were shaking and he rammed them into his pockets. "Les," he snapped, his voice almost as unsteady as his fingers. "Les, really, there's a lot we need to show you, and…"

"Oh, okay," the congressman said pleasantly, as if Al were interrupting a conversation about the weather or the latest basketball results. "Your office?"

Al nodded numbly, stumbling a little and trying with all his might to control his humiliation. He dared to expose his quaking right hand long enough to open the door, and then stood aside to usher Les in. Al closed the door, leaning against it briefly as he closed his eyes against the ugliness of recollection.

"You want some whiskey?" he asked, crossing to the bookcase and pulling out the fifth volume of the encyclopedia that concealed a large portion of his supply of potables.

"Love one," Les said brightly. He was fiddling with the model of a Cougar, the plane of the month and so favored with the coveted position on the captain's desk—the others were relegated to the shelves. Al poured two glasses of the golden fluid, and drained the first surreptitiously, filling it again.

Hands steady now, he gave Les his drink and sat down across from him. With any luck, they could get through the rest of the day without any more "reminiscing".

_MWMWMMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

"He's got it bad," Les Davies said, sitting down on the Starbright-issue sofa that occupied most of one wall of Dan Penvenen's one-room quarters. The younger man raised an eyebrow, looking up from the steno book he had been laboring over.

" 'It', Congressman?" he said politely. He didn't like Davies. He was lecherous and hedonistic, the kind of man who lied to everyone, especially himself. In short, exactly like Calavicci. It was mystifying that he hated the captain so much, when they could have been brothers.

"PTSD," Davies said. He spun out the anagram with relish. "Post-traumatic stress disorder." He laughed. "You should have seen his face when I started telling the secretary about the ropes! Thousand yard stare and the whole bit! Oh, Calavicci has got it bad."

Penvenen bit his tongue in revulsion. He definitely didn't like Davies. His one saving grace was that he was, undoubtedly, a means to an end.

The statesman's smile faded and he shuddered. "God, this had better be worth it," he said grimly. "You know, it's not easy for me reliving this shit, either."

"I don't imagine it is," Dan said coolly. In his mind, it was all that this deceitful womanizer deserved. And the other deceitful womanizer too: the one still in the service. "How did he change the subject?"

"Asked me into his office for a drink. You think you have a chance to get him?"

Dan ran the tip of his ring finger against the smooth needle-sharp tip of his pencil. "I think there is a very real danger that, if his behavior continues to deteriorate, Captain Calavicci might prove a threat to the integrity of Starbright," he said, choosing his words with precision.

Davies smiled again. "Good!" he said. "Egotistical braggart. You hear that thing's up for a Pulitzer?"

A noncommittal shrug was in order. "Applied for consideration," he corrected. "The shortlists haven't been made." Dan returned to the question at hand. "You say he offered you a drink? In his office?"

"Yeah. Got a whole wetbar hidden behind the encyclopedias," Davies said. "Tomorrow he wants me to have dinner with him and his wife. Painter, right?"

"No, she's our Recreation Coordinator," Dan said. "The last one was a painter."

"Right! What's this one like?"

"Young. Nubile. You'll like her," Dan said dispassionately. That was going to be an interesting meal: two oversexed wash-ups both drooling over one young, athletic, charming… He schooled his thoughts sternly.

"How young?" Davies asked keenly. He looked like a wolf. An old, dirty-minded, toothless wolf.

"Twenty-two," Dan replied.

The congressman chuckled lasciviously. "Is she really?" he said with delight.

"Uhm." Dan was too busy making notes of his own. Behind the encyclopedias, was it?


	18. Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The cool desert night took away a little of the burning mortification. More important was the long draught of vodka that drained the hip flask and restored some dignity to a man who had had a very hellish day.

Al wished he could blame Les, just so that it wouldn't have to be his own fault. If he could only have accused the former POW of deliberately pushing his buttons, of trying to make him queasy with recollections of Vietnam, it would have been easier. This wasn't the case, though. It just wasn't the case. Les wanted to relieve the camps the way all soldiers loved to relive glorious battles or thrilling firefights. Or rather, no, because such remembrances were always tempered with gravity, with the memories of dead comrades and civilians caught in the crossfire. No, this was more like the way that one alumnus would talk to another about the good old days at Beta Upsilon Fraternity or the glorious victories on the fields of sport.

'_Fields of sport. God._' Al's knees began to quake, and he fumbled with his lighter, struggling to accomplish what he had come up here to do. He couldn't make his fingers obey him. He gnawed his lip and tried again. This time he succeeded, and the cigar smoke filled his mouth, fragrant and glorious. It calmed him a little and he was able to focus on the problem with a little more objectivity.

Sure, it was bad to feel old scars igniting again. It was horrible to be clean, clad in attractive, colorful clothes, and still think you were ripe with sweat, ingrained with filth, crawling with lice, your skin growing fungus as you hid your nakedness with a few drab and noxious rags. You didn't want to walk the deck above a state-of-the-art synchrotron with the scents of a foreign jungle in your nostrils and the sounds of friends' tormented screams ringing in your ears. Far worse, though, was knowing what this said about you. If Les, who had been through hell just the same as Al had, could look back on the privation and the torture and the terror with the nostalgia of a former varsity athlete looking back on a season of glory, then that meant Al's own unstable state of mind was abnormal. It meant he was overreacting. He was crazy.

'_Finally: you admit it!_' the cruel voice in the back of his head taunted. So much for objectivity. '_Crazy Calavicci. You oughta be locked in a rubber room! Off your rocker! All this time you've been free when really you were the one who belonged in an institution! _YOU_, not Trudy!_'

'_Not Trudy, not tonight,_' Al begged. He couldn't cope with that phantom now. He was close enough to the edge as it was.

He puffed desperately on his cigar, wishing that he hadn't polished off the vodka in one go. He was starting to shake again.

'_Why not?_' the voice jeered. '_Don't you love her? Don't you _want _to think about her? Or do you feel guilty, 'cause you killed her?_'

'_I didn't kill her_!' Al knew that protestations would only bring more pain. It was better just to accept the torment and let another little piece of his soul die quietly. Still, he had spent his whole life being bullheaded, fighting back even when he knew it was the wrong thing to do. '_Damn you, I didn't kill her!_'

'_What's the difference?_' his disembodied torturer demanded. '_You let her die!_'

'_I didn't know!_'

'_You were her big brother: you _SHOULD_ have known!_' the voice cried. '_You failed her, _you_ screwed up—just like you've screwed up everything your whole life—and _she_ died! You're a failure, Calavicci! A failure!'_

Al rammed the heel of his left hand against his forehead, trying to drive out the demons. This gesture earned him a round of derisive laughter and the grim reminder that he knew what he had to do to get silence.

He flinched instinctively as a plane whistled overhead. It was one of the pilots, taking a night run just for the hell of it, but the noise translated into other planes, planes whose sound had brought pain. Bombing runs meant, if you were lucky, a cathartic game of Beat the Yankee. If you weren't so fortunate, you would wind up in a session with an interrogator who knew you hadn't been privy to tactical information in five years, but who still asked questions, bending and twisting, drowning or burning or whipping, just to see if you would tell a lie to stop the torture.

Time to go inside, Al thought miserably. He had hoped that a cigar under the stars would help him relax, but it definitely was not working. He promised himself that he would make one more stop on the road to oblivion.

Maybe it would help. Nothing else ever did, nothing except whiskey.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

He opened the door and slipped inside, kicking off his shoes as he shot the deadbolt. He squared his shoulders and tried to look as jaunty and desirable as he could, despite the fact that he _felt_ wretched, small and loathsome. It wasn't Al's way to let others tune into his hurt, and the best way to cover it up was with jocularity and bravado.

He moved into the living room area, and saw that she was waiting for him on the sofa: a gilt goddess with tender arms and a generous heart. Al froze as he realized that she really _was_ a goddess tonight.

Maxine was wearing a white bed sheet, the blue Starbright emblem placed carefully over her heart. She had used his gold faux leather belt (one of the few remnants of his days as a disco king to survive Sharon's regime) to cinch it around her waist. A large, sparkly plastic brooch was pinned at each shoulder, creating the artful drape of a _peplos_. Nestled on her golden hair was a cheap rhinestone tiara of the sort that abounded around Halloween. She had purple plastic thongs on her feet. She smiled seductively.

"So," she said grandly; "the god has returned to Mount Olympus!"

Al found the day's first genuine smile creeping onto his face. Met with this vision, he found some of the ugliness draining away. "You look gorgeous," he told her earnestly, taking in her attire again, more slowly. "Where'd you get the crown?"

She smiled shyly, falling out of the part. "I was prom queen in the eighth grade," she confessed.

"You were?" Al asked softly. It was practically a shock response. He was too busy looking at her to focus on speaking. She was beautiful: a piece of classical art or the embodiment of a fantasy, almost too perfect to touch.

Almost. Not quite. Here she was, white and clean, serene, beautiful—everything his thoughts today had not been—and all that he had to do to drive away the demons, at least for a little while, was to share in some small part of her grace. To do that, all he had to do was touch her.

She laughed as he reached out hypnotically to brush his fingertips against the silk of her hair. She sat up a little, her long legs making the sheet ripple. "Welcome home, my lord… uh…" Maxine frowned in puzzlement. "I forget who you are," she admitted.

"Your husband," Al said automatically, daring to reach for the creamy skin of her bare arm. A tiny voice deep inside cried out in surprise and delight when she didn't shrink away, or shatter like a dream, or dissolve the way the images of Beth always did.

Not Beth. _Maxine_. Maxine, Maxine, Maxine… "Maxine," he breathed. "Maxine."

"No, Aphrodite," she corrected, reaching up to caress his face. "But I don't remember your name."

"My name?" It was as if he were in a trance, captivated by the beauty and goodness before him. After a long, difficult day fighting his inner darkness, her light was stunning and a little overwhelming.

"Yeah. I know you told me, but I don't remember."

"Told you?" Al had no idea what she was talking about, but God, she was beautiful.

"The night we met," she said, her voice sweet and soothing, washing over his frayed nerves like a balm of paradise. She was removing his tie. He stood immobile, his hand resting on her arm and his eyes fixed on her dreamy expression. "You said I looked like a goddess. I asked which one: you said Aphrodite. Then I asked who that made you. And you said… I dunno. Hippocrates or Augustus or…"

"Hephaestus," he exhaled. "If you're Aphrodite, I'm Hephaestus."

"That's it!" Maxine said happily, pushing his shirt off and lifting his t-shirt towards his shoulders. He removed it with a hasty motion, returning his eyes and his hand to Maxine as quickly as possible. Her skin was cool and smooth. Her eyes were shining like sapphires. So beautiful. She was so beautiful…

"Hephaestus," she mused, petting his breastbone. "That's it. Hephaestus." She unbuckled his belt and suddenly he was stepping out of his trousers, standing before her in his shorts and socks.

"Aphrodite," he murmured, because obviously she wanted him to.

"Hephaestus," she repeated contentedly, drawing him towards her. Suddenly, he was seated in her lap as she stroked his hair. "I don't know much about Italian myths. Who was he?"

"Greek, not Italian," Al corrected absently. Her shoulder looked so inviting, and in the context of foreplay such contact was allowed, and so he eased his aching head down onto it. The soft rise and fall of her chest was comforting. Simple contact with another human being, the illusion of love and home and family.

Maxine fondled his earlobe, and he shifted a little to kiss her neck. "Older son of Hera," he continued, transfixed by her smooth, warm skin. He curled his legs up over hers, and his feet tucked between the seat cushion and the back of the sofa. "Blacksmith and jeweler of the gods. Zeus and Hera were arguing, and Hephaestus took his mother's side. Zeus was furious. He took Hephaestus by the ankle and threw him from Olympus. He fell for a day and a night before he finally crashed to earth."

She gasped. "That's horrible!"

"He was immortal," Al went on, cuddling closer and curling his hand around her waist. "He couldn't die." He closed his eyes against a sudden wave of desolation. They wouldn't even let him die.

"What happened?" Maxine asked softly, her lips finding his and taking the edge off of his misery, at least enough to allow him to continue.

"He broke his legs," Al breathed, "and his back was bent." A permanent stoop. Not very noticeable: less than many men got as they moved into old age, but still there. At least an inch off his already substandard height that he had left in Vietnam and would never see again.

Maxine's arm crept around his chest to feel his spine, petting it tenderly as their embrace continued. "That must've been painful," she murmured.

"It was. Very painful," he whispered as her hand ran over a puckered scar below his ribs. "Too painful to talk about. Ever."

"The poor man," Maxine sighed, tucking her chin downwards so that she could kiss Al's collarbone. The tingling sensation this caused morphed into remembered suffering, and Al gasped hollowly. Maxine, God bless her, didn't seem to notice. "What did he do?"

Al focused on the story. By doing so, he could express suffering without making reference to or having to cope with his own. "His arms and hands were still whole, and he used them to drag himself back to Olympus. He pulled himself back up to the top of the mountain, his broken legs dragging behind him. Hestia nursed his wounds, and eventually his body was healed, but he was never whole again."

"Never?" Maxine asked sorrowfully. Al closed his eyes. His resistance had been worn away by the difficult day, and he could not help but give in to the fragile part of his mind (the weak part, he thought with disgust). It wanted to pretend that her compassion was for him instead of the cripple of Olympus. It longed for the illusion that there was someone out there blind to the truth, unaware that he deserved it all, and willing in her ignorance to care about him.

"Never," he said, thanking her for that moment of fantasy in the only way he could: by continuing the tale. "His legs wouldn't hold him up. He could never stand straight again." He knew how that felt. He had been living that reality for ten years. Hephaestus and Calavicci: two of a kind. "He built two robots—"

"Robots?" Maxine laughed. "In Ancient Greece?"

"Animated statues, if you like," Al said, rousing himself from his stupor for a moment before slipping right back under again. "One of silver." He kissed her to punctuate. "One of gold.

Maxine sighed in pleasure and interest, massaging the crest of his hip. Al smiled, closing his eyes again. This was the best part of the story. Of both stories.

"Zeus felt pretty lousy," he said. "He took pity on Hephaestus, and to make up for the pain and the injuries, he gave him Aphrodite as his wife."

"Me?" Maxine exclaimed merrily.

"Yes," Al said, kissing her again, hungrily this time. The word went deeper than the context of the tale. His luck was changing. Finally, finally everything was going to get better. This marriage was going to work out. He knew it.

It had to.

He reached up and unfastened first one brooch, and then the other. He loosened the belt and began to unwrap her. He kissed her sternum where the knobs of her sculpted collarbones met. "Yes," he repeated softly. "You."


	19. Chapter Eighteen

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Maxine brushed her hair for what felt like the fifteenth time. It wasn't quite right. She studied her reflection critically. She was wearing her most conservative outfit: a robin's egg blue A-line dress with a little white bolero jacket featuring fashionably thick shoulder pads. She liked the way the dress accented her waist, making it look trim and slender. What she didn't like was the way the outfit made her look like a secretary or a lawyer.

Well, she thought, maybe looking like a lawyer was not such a bad thing. She had thought, when she was younger, that it would be cool to be a lawyer. She had imagined herself as a female Perry Mason: erudite and intelligent, dispensing justice with a keenly honed tongue and prowling the courtroom as if she owned it.

She had had a lot of ambitions back in the third or fourth grade when everyone had been forming their visions of what they would be when they grew up. It would have been great to be a doctor, in a white coat and scrubs, skilled and respected and so smart. She might have liked to be a veterinarian, or a scientist like Doctor Donna Eleese. It would have been fun to be a grade-school teacher, or an optometrist, or an engineer or a writer. Maxine had created so many grand fantasies, but every single one had come to nothing. It was hard to focus on schoolwork when half your class (the male half) was leering at you, making suggestive gestures or passing dirty notes. There was no time for homework or studying when you had "dates" every night and house parties all weekend. By the middle of the ninth grade, when every guy from freshman to senior knew you were easy, and the girls all knew you were the high school tramp, and the only people who didn't spurn you or hate you were the ones who wanted to sleep with you, and your mother didn't give a damn because she was busy with her own lovers—well, at that point there was only one way out, and it didn't make allowances for delusions of grandeur.

At least now she had a chance at _one_ dream. Max thought about her roller-skates with a contented smile. Al was such a sweetheart. She never would have had the courage to give it a shot if he hadn't encouraged her. There was a tryout for one of the Phoenix teams next weekend, and Al had promised to take her out for that. She wasn't very good (she couldn't go more than five feet without falling) yet, but Al thought it would be a good idea to see what it was like. He had told a funny story about his first audition to illustrate his point. Fourteen years old and anxious to keep busy during the summer—he had not explained _why_ a fourteen-year-old would _want_ to be busy in the summer—he had gone out to try for a part in a production with a local theatre troupe. Having heard a lot about the importance of projecting his voice, he had bellowed his way through the audition. Since his competition was mostly shy local kids, he had wound up getting the part. More importantly, he had learned what to expect next time, and won his next role with a little more professionalism.

Thoughts of Al brought her back to the problem at hand. Al wanted her to join him for supper with the visitor from the Committee. The very thought filled her with terror: Maxine Delancey eating with a Congressman!

She nervously put in her earrings: large blue and white plastic studs embellished with dramatic hoops. She liked them because of the way they made her eyes glitter like shards of cobalt glass, but would Congressman Davies think they were too flashy? Did they really make her look mature and glamorous the way she assumed they did, or were they silly?

Maybe the problem really _was_ her hair. She was wearing it loose around her shoulders as she usually did. Maybe she ought to put it up instead. Al had said so little about Mr. Davies this morning: just that he was an old friend. Maxine was feeling awfully self-conscious. Next to Al, she was such a kid. Usually she looked on her age as an asset, but there were times—and this was one of them-when she felt gangling and awkward and half-grown.

She didn't want to disappoint Al. There had been a hint of desperation in his voice when he had told her of the dinner date before leaving for his office. Probably he was scared she would shame him in front of his important friend from Washington. The thought made tears prickle in her eyes, and she fought them furiously. She could not cry: she would smear her makeup.

She looked at herself with a brief burst of pride. At least her makeup was perfect. She had always been great at makeup, ever since the sixth grade when she had snuck into Mom's stash while her parent was in bed with—Mike? Walter? Maxine told herself it didn't matter anymore who it had been. She tilted her head from side to side. Yes, her makeup was perfect, from the faint crescents of blue eye shadow to the moist-looking coral lips. Now if only she could figure out what was wrong with the rest of her!

There was a clicking of a key in the lock. Al was back to pick her up: they would be meeting the congressman (she felt a flutter of fresh anxiety) upstairs in the ground-level restaurant, a cafeteria glorified by table service. It did serve better food and offered more ambiance than the mess hall on Sub-Level Five, anyway. Maxine focused on the mirror, trying not to stare too obviously as her husband came into the room.

"Hi, Max," he grunted, glancing at her as he peeled off his red shirt and tie.

"Hi," she responded breathlessly, hoping he would make one of his frequent and ever-welcome remarks about her appearance.

He didn't. His undershirt joined the carmine silk in the laundry hamper, and he disappeared into the other room. A moment later he returned, dabbing on a fresh layer of antiperspirant. Maxine focused on his reflection. He looked haggard and weary, though admittedly not as worn as he had the previous evening. He had come in then looking like a man whose last chance had come and gone. Hoping to bring him out of the strange melancholy, Max had continued with the game as planned. It had taken an unexpected turn with the storytelling, but in the end it had proved to be a delightful excursion. That was another great thing about Al. Everyone knew that wild sex was great, but it was easy to forget about tender sex, and how wonderful that could be.

Al took out a blue shirt and a bolo tie, and then came towards the bureau. Suddenly her insecurities came to the forefront, heightened by his lack of comment, and Maxine blurted out, "I think I should put my hair up: what do you think?"

Al paused to look at her. His eyes were red and he seemed to be staring at something half a mile away. "No," he said, his voice rasping a little. "No, leave it. You look beautiful."

"Really?" she asked anxiously. "Because I was thinking maybe the earrings aren't right, and do I look like an adult or not, and do you think—"

He took her face in his hands, careful to place them on the jaw where they wouldn't smear her rouge. "Max," he said, firmly and softly. Suddenly he was completely present for her, absolutely in earnest. "Max, you look perfect. You're beautiful. Les isn't going to believe what he's seeing."

"Really?" she whispered in spite of herself.

"Absolutely," Al said with conviction. He kissed the tip of her nose. "I've got the prettiest wife in the state."

She smiled gratefully. "I've got the most wonderful husband," she offered in return.

Al chuckled and pinched her chin fondly. "You need to get out more," he said candidly. Then he turned back to the task of dressing himself. Maxine picked up the brush and began to run it through her hair one more time. Al finished with his shirts, and then moved back towards the bathroom to deal with his hair. Max picked up her little blue bag with the large D-ring handles in white plastic, and slipped her coral lipstick into it. She preened in front of the mirror. Maybe she _was_ pretty, after all.

She could do this, she decided. After all, she wasn't Maxine Delancey anymore. She was Maxine _Calavicci_, the wife of a Naval captain and a national hero. She was equal to any occasion, as long as her husband believed in her.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Congressman Lester Davies wasn't at all what Maxine had expected. He was neither daunting nor distinguished. He was an oldish man—she supposed that he was about Al's age, but he looked much older—with graying straw-colored hair, average height (which was to say an inch and a half shorter than she was, in her blue satin pumps) and slightly paunchy around the equator. He was wearing a golf shirt and stone-washed blue jeans with a wide leather belt. He looked like the spokesman for a line of souped-up pickup trucks.

The first thing he did as they approached the table where he was seated was to give Maxine the full camera pan, starting from the shoes and working up to the face in a long, eager motion. Maxine edged closer to Al. Most guys looked at her that way, but _he_ never had. Whenever he looked her over—even the first time they had met in the Jersey City tattoo parlor—he seemed to be admiring a statue or a piece of art. Not eyeing a hunk of fresh meat.

Al's hand found her arm, steady and reassuring. His eyes weren't red anymore, either, she noticed. That must have been the light in the bedroom. "Les, I'd like you to meet my wife, Maxine. Maxine, this is Les Davies."

"Pleasure to meet you, ma'am," Davies said, holding out his hand. He had a drawling Southern accent, and there was a lecherous look in his eye.

Taking comfort from Al's touch, Maxine shook hands. "Pleased to meet you, Congressman," she said politely.

"Les! Please, Les. Al and I are old friends. Did he tell you that?"

"I told her everything, Les," Al said, a little too emphatically. Maxine looked at him. There was an unusual urgency in his dark eyes. "Everything. She doesn't need to hear any of it again."

"Glad you know about me, Maxine—can I call you Maxine?" Davies paused and Max nodded. "I, on the other hand, know almost nothing about you. Though I must say, if I had it to do over, you're exactly the kind of lady I'd pick myself!"

"She's a treasure," Al said, pulling out a chair for Max and rubbing her arm briefly as she sat. He settled next to her. The waiter brought water and a list of the day's entrees.

"So tell me, Maxine, what do you do?" Davies asked politely.

They passed the wait for the food with pleasant small talk. It wasn't so bad, Maxine reflected. Davies was neither so suave nor so charming as Al. He was just a slightly dirty-minded (she could tell from the way he kept eyeing her) old man visiting with a friend. They were almost finished the meal when the statesman turned to her with a smile.

"Al's told you the story of how we met?" he asked.

"No," Maxine said politely. "No, he hasn't."

"Yes, I have!" Al said sharply. "Remember? The Blue Room?"

Maxine turned to him with a small, confused frown. Blue room? What blue room? Al's eyes twitched desperately. She smiled. "Oh, of course, silly me!" she said. "The _blue_ room. I'm sorry, Congressman. I didn't realize that story was about you."

"It's really more of a story about Al," Davies said. "Quite the hero, your husband."

"I know!" Maxine said. That was more familiar territory. Everyone knew Al was a hero. She smiled proudly, glancing at him again.

He looked as anxious as if the Lakers were in overtime and playing uncommonly badly. She couldn't remember ever seeing him quite that sort of tense before.

"Everyone thought so. Of course, he told you all about that, too."

"Oh, yes," Max assured him. She knew all about Al's NASA career. He had just about single handedly saved the program's funding. "He's always been excellent at charming Congress—as I'm sure you know."

"Yes, he has, but that's not what I meant," Davies said pleasantly. He seemed like a nice guy.

"Les, don't do this," Al hissed between ground teeth.

"I meant in Vietnam."

Maxine flushed a little. She had forgotten about Vietnam. It seemed like such a distant issue, so far in the past. She had only been twelve when the war ended, for crying out loud. It was another embarrassing reminder of how young she was. "Oh," she said. "Well, he's a wonderful pilot, too."

"I don't know how he was in the air, Maxine, but he was a true hero in the ropes," Davies said happily. "I've never seen a man take the torture the way that Lieutenant Calavicci did."

"I'm sorry," Maxine said with a little laugh. She couldn't have heard that right. "Take the what?"

"Nothing!" Al snapped. "Absolutely nothing! Les, how's Sarah? And the kids?"

"No idea. I've been in D.C. for a month and a half. Take the torture, my dear," he repeated. "Of course, Charlie never called it that. It was _interrogation_ when they were asking you impossible questions, and _punishment_ when they had no real excuse…"

"Stop it, Les," Al croaked. There was extreme anxiety in his voice now, and an almost beseeching quality that startled Maxine. "She doesn't want to hear it. Please, let's talk about something else."

"Don't be silly, Al! Of course she wants to hear it!" Davies laughed. He was as happy as ever, though Al had gone a terrible shade of gray and seemed to be having difficulty breathing. "Everyone wants to hear it. I'd have thought you would have realized that by now. Isn't that right, Maxine?"

"Oh, I…" Maxine looked desperately at Al. She had no idea what was going on, or why he looked so deathly pale. She wished he would prompt her, give her some clue as to how he wanted her to act, but it was almost like he were in a trance, staring ahead and trembling. The only one who was giving her any verbal cues was Congressman Davies. "Oh, yes," she said. "Yes, of course I do."

Davies smiled complacently. "You see?" he said. "What you have to understand, Maxine, is that nobody could be strong all the time, and it wasn't anything to be ashamed of if Charlie could break you now and then. I once saw the 'V' beat Al for two days straight with bamboo canes and strips cut from old tires. He was bleeding from every orifice, and his back looked like a—"

"We really have to be going!" Al gasped. He threw his credit card down on the table. "It's on my tab, and I'll see you tomorrow morning for the propulsion test. Sleep well. Come on, Max, we have to be going!"

Bewildered beyond all telling, Maxine reacted to the tugging on her arm rather than his words. She was still trying to process what the congressman had just said. Beat Al? Who had beat Al? Bleeding? Torture? What was he talking about?

"Hey, your card!" Davies called.

"Give it to a Marine: it'll get back to me," Al snapped breathlessly, striding for the door and dragging Maxine after him.

She trotted after her husband, her impractically shod feet trying to keep up with his unusually long, urgent strides. As soon as they were in the concealed elevator heading back into the bowels of the Project, she tried to open her mouth. She only got as far as "Al, what—" before he silenced her with a frantic, jerking shake of the head.

The second they were safely in the suite, Al was wrenching off his tie and undoing his cuffs. "Damn it!" he gasped.

Maxine stood by the door, her whole body trembling and her mind racing. What, what the _hell_ had just happened? "Al?" she ventured. "Al, what's wrong? Why did we run out like that? What was he talking about?"

Al had the fridge open. He took out the bottle of Chianti that they had been relishing over the last couple of weeks. Instead of a wine glass, he grabbed a tumbler, filling it and taking a long swallow. "Nothing," he said flatly, staring into the depths of the sink. "Nothing at all. Not a thing."

"What was he talking about?" Max cried frantically. She was in a panic and she didn't understand why. Confusion, she supposed. Shock. The sense that something was horribly amiss. "Interrogation? Ropes? What was he talking about?"

Al took a deep, shuddering breath. Pain filled every syllable. "Max, you know I flew a Skyhawk in the Vietnam War," he said.

"Yes," Maxine whispered.

"You know that, in war, planes get shot down," he continued tersely.

"Yes." She could scarcely mouth the word.

"Mine did."

There was a long silence. Al drained the glass and gripped the edge of the counter with such force that his knuckles went white.

"When?" Maxine whispered.

"End of '66," he exhaled, staring resolutely at the melamine.

Maxine's stomach twisted. In 1966, _she_ had been starting the first grade.

Al was talking again. "I got shot down, and Charlie found me," he said, his voice hardening with the effort the words required.

She shifted her attention from the impossible conundrum to the tangible one. "Charlie?" she said.

"The VC," Al tried.

"VC?" she whispered, at a loss.

He screwed his eyes tightly closed. His words came through gritted teeth. "The North Vietnamese," he enunciated carefully. He turned to meet her eyes for a fraction of a second. "The 'bad guys'," he translated.

Maxine felt suddenly cold. "The enemy found you?" she gasped. It was just like last night, with the story of Hephaestus, except that this time the horror was real.

Al nodded, looking away again. "I was MIA. Missing In Action. From my perspective a prisoner of war."

Those words meant something to her. "Like _The Great Escape_," she said.

Al turned to her, a small smile on his lips. "Not quite," he whispered.

She tried again. "_The Bridge on the River Kwai_?"

"A—a little closer to that," Al faltered. "Or maybe _Stalag 17_."

Maxine shook her head. It wasn't adding up. "But Mr. Davies said torture," she said, her stomach knotting itself up at the word. It couldn't be. Torture was a medieval thing: dungeons and witch hunts. Masked executioners. Or _Star Wars_. The Evil Galactic Empire tortured prisoners, not modern governments. Darth Vader was a torturer, not real people in the real world. Han Solo had been tortured, not her husband. Not Al. It just couldn't be true.

"Yeah, well, you know Les—"

"No, I don't!" Maxine protested, her mind too fragile just now to catch the idiom.

"Well, I do," Al said. "And believe me, he exaggerates." He hid his face in his hands. "He exaggerates."

Maxine had no idea what else to do, so she hurried forward and wrapped her arms around her husband, trying to ease the pain that was obviously tormenting him, while at the same time seeking comfort for her own bewildered and hurting heart. Al stiffened and skittered away from her. Max watched him, trying not to feel wounded and rejected.

It was no use.

"Al, please," she begged quietly.

He kept his back to her as he started to unbutton his shirt. "I need to take a shower," he announced woodenly.

"Al," she breathed, wordlessly imploring him to turn around and talk about it. She didn't understand, and she had a horrible, frightening feeling that it was very important, absolutely critical, that she should.

Al ignored her, navigating the crowded living room and starting to strip down. His undershirt came over his head. As he vanished into the bathroom, Maxine stared at his back. She knew it intimately but, having always blithely assumed it had been marred in a childhood accident or some kind of plane crash during his pilot days, she was now seeing it from a different perspective. Scars. Hundreds of scars: large and small, smooth, puckered. Every kind of disfigurement imaginable. Scars, all over his body.

Torture?


	20. Chapter Nineteen

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Les toyed thoughtfully with the piece of plastic, his fingertip feeling the embossed letters as it traced the name. If he focused, he could hear that name shouted angrily, defiantly, and yet undeniably painfully as the whips cracked and the slant-eyed VC scabs laughed. _Albert Calavicci. Lieutenant. Serial Number B-933-852. Albert Calavicci. Albert Calavicci_.

He found his lips moving, reciting another mantra. _Davies, Lester J. Lieutenant Commander. B-293-661. April 4, 1937. Davies, Lester J. Lieutenant Commander. B-2—_

"I'm sorry, Congressman, did you say something?" Daniel Penvenen—a man Les wouldn't trust to guard a skateboard in an old folks' home—came back into the small office in the Human Resources wing. He was carrying two glasses of orange juice. Ever the optimist, Les took the proffered beverage and tasted it. Not a hint of vodka. That meant this was a health drink, like something Sarah would serve up while railing about cholesterol and exercise. Leave it to the mole to lack the one all-American vice more fun than women.

"Well?" Penvenen was saying. "Did you say something?"

"Oh!" Davies exclaimed. "I was thinking I came on too strong tonight."

"Too strong?" The younger man set down his orange juice and frowned pensively. "What do you mean by that?"

"I had dinner with him and that cocktail waitress he married."

"Florist's assistant," Penvenen corrected brusquely, adding with a hint of fastidiousness; "now our Recreation Coordinator."

"Whatever." Les waved him off. These Company men were all the same: anal retentive and obsessed with minute particulars . "I kinda… I got into details."

"What happened?"

"He grabbed the booty and made a very quick exit. Never seen a disappearing act like that! Now you see him, now you don't! I just don't understand why he's taking this crap. I know I wouldn't." Les looked down at the object in his hand. "He even left his damned credit card to pay for the meal," he reflected quietly.

Penvenen eyed him with caution. "You aren't having second thoughts, are you, Congressman?"

Les coughed uncomfortably. "No," he said. "No, but… I mean, you're a civilian—well, not military anyway, and you have no idea what it was like over there."

"On the contrary, Congressman. I and a good many others have read a riveting account of exactly what it was like over there, thanks to your friend," Penvenen observed.

Les shook his head. That had been a sore spot for a long time now. "Calavicci always was a holier-than-thou son of a bitch," he said.

"That's right," said Penvenen. "You've always hated him, haven't you? From the day that you met him."

"Damned right!" Les affirmed. He had lost sight of that for a while. It wouldn't happen again. "You're damned right there. The self-righteous, posturing, arrogant bastard!"

He didn't notice how Penvenen dug into his pocket as if groping for a switch: Les was too caught up in his resentment. The swaggering guinea who had never broken, never given Charlie anything more than lies, never capitulated to the terror. Who the hell did he think he was? Sitting there like a martyr, covered in blood, unable to lie down because if he did his chest would rattle so he couldn't breathe. Who had asked him to do it, anyway? No one! He had chosen to stick his neck out, and everyone else in the hootch had to watch his suffering and feel guilty. It wasn't fair!

Of course, Calavicci's little excursion had probably saved all of their lives—but saved them for what? Five more years of torture, degradation, and deprivation. Coming home to a stranger, nothing like the wife you had left behind, and three half-grown kids who didn't even remember you. Unfit for active duty and unwilling to ride a desk for the Pentagon. A political career at Sarah's insistence, representing _her_ home state, not your own. Ten years of finding pleasure nowhere but in the sport of adultery and the nightly martinis. All because of Calavicci and his misguided heroism.

If that weren't enough, there was the book. Who in their right mind would sell a story like that? Les closed his eyes. He could see the cover emblazoned on the inside of his eyelids. The Men Left Behind, the title read. The True Story of Robert White and Albert Calavicci. It told of the trials and travails of the last two POWs repatriated—men who had spent four years in the deep-jungle camps where vindictive VC commanders were the autocrats of their small domains. It was a gut-wrenchingly graphic, nauseatingly accurate work, reeking of the photojournalist's eye for detail. The author, Margaret Dawson, had never said how she had obtained this account, but in Les's mind there was no doubt. He had a friend whose brother was in the Air Force with a captain who was a close friend of Robert White, and through this channel Les knew that White was not the sort of man who would do that. That left one person who had been in those camps the whole time, and come out alive. Calavicci. It only made sense. After all, though approaching forty from the wrong side, Dawson was still a damned attractive woman, and everyone knew that she would stop at nothing for a scoop.

What didn't make sense was why the man who had prostituted the story of his incarceration in exchange for an easy screw didn't want to talk about it. Post-traumatic stress disorder wasn't usually a selective thing.

So what? It was a fitting punishment for the crime.

"The truth is, Congressman," Penvenen said; "you want to destroy Calavicci, and I want what's best for Starbright. The longer I stay here, the more convinced I become that our goals are concomitant."

He smiled charismatically. Les felt a shiver run up his spine. He was a Company man, all right. A Company man to the core.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWWMMWMWMWM

Donna Eleese hated Committee visits. They interfered with the regular routine—and routine was everything in a place where the slightest distraction, the most fractional error, could magnify itself tenfold—like the measuring of a thousand-mille quantity in hundred-mille beakers. Nevertheless, she was worldly enough after three years running this level to know that without the Committee there was no money. God, what she wouldn't do for an employer who would just let her _work_!

She put on her smile for the convoy: a couple of Marines, Calavicci, Davies, and—strangely enough—one of the silky and not-quite-trustworthy men from Human Resources. She recognized him after a moment's careful thought. Daniel Pendragon. She didn't trust him. He had a scientist's precision. In a man who was supposedly a philosophy major, that was a strange trait.

"Good morning, gentlemen!" she said coolly, offering her hand to the dignitary. "Congressman."

His eyes raked ravenously over her. He looked like a shark zeroing in on his next meal. Conquest was a better word, she reflected, as his gaze fell on her bosom. Instinct told her that a prudish buttoning of her lab coat was in order, but dignity would not allow her to admit that she was aware of the unwanted attention.

Calavicci, as usual, was focusing on her face. It wasn't that he never examined her body: she had caught him in the act many times. Still, he seemed willing to acknowledge that she had a mind in there somewhere, and to respect her for it. For all his lascivious conduct and endemic flirting, she couldn't deny that he was a decent human being when compared to the D.C. vulture he was presently wooing.

Donna rebuffed that thought. Here she was excusing Calavicci's lewd behavior just because he wasn't as noxious as Davies? Ridiculous.

"Good morning, Doctor," the captain was saying. "Les was hoping to have a look at the control room before we start the test."

"Of course," Donna said unctuously. "Follow me."

The procession moved into the room full of computers and controls from which the synchrotron could be operated. In a corner, Doctor Gushman, the halitosis-plagued programmer, was performing invasive surgery on one of the Apple workstations used for drafting daily reports. Though considered state-of-the-art by most of the world, those machines were only just good enough for stenographers' tools down here.

"It must be thrilling to work in a place like this," Davies was saying. "After all, not only have you got access to all this technology and the most qualified staff the country has to offer, you also get to work with a decorated war hero and American icon like—"

"Les…" Calavicci growled.

Donna turned. If the Congressman wanted to bait her, she would bait right back. "American icon? I hadn't realized that Rosa Parks had been assigned to Starbright!"

Davies laughed boisterously. "I meant Al!" he said.

"You'll what?" Donna rejoined sweetly, deliberately misinterpreting his drawl.

"Les, have you seen the new projection algorithms yet?" interjected Calavicci hoarsely, as if he were desperately trying to divert the conversation.

"Al Calavicci, the Silent Warrior of Cham Hoi!" Davies said, ignoring the captain completely. "You didn't know?"

"I have no idea what you might be talking about," Donna said. She had her eye on the captain, who was strangely pale. His eyes were glassy and bloodshot. She felt a cold knot of disapproval settling over her liver. He had been drinking.

"Al was MIA in 'Nam, didn't you know?"

"_Les_!" Calavicci wailed desperately. "God, Les, talk about something else!"

Donna scarcely noticed the Project Administrator's discomfiture. She was too busy with her own emotions. No one brought up Vietnam around her. No one talked about it in her presence. Only a handful of people knew why: the rest assumed she'd been a peacenik, the same way they assumed she'd been a bra-burner. Only six—no, maybe seven—people in the entire world knew that her father, whom she hadn't seen since she was eight years old, had gone on a tour of the Highlands when she was eighteen, and never come back. Never even bothered to look her up, or say goodbye. Just gone off and got himself listed Missing In Action, and—Never. Come. Back.

But Calavicci had. If he had been MIA in Vietnam, it was obvious that he had come home.

"He was," Davies was saying. "He was missing for six years. I remember the winter of '67. It had been raining for six days straight, and the floor of the hootch we were in was mud. I—"

Donna wanted to scream at him to stop, but someone else beat her to it. Calavicci whirled on the taller man with all the fury of a cornered mongoose.

"God _dammit_, Les, that's enough!" he cried. "That's _enough_! You dredge it up at every damned social function—as if that isn't adequate, you come barging onto my Project talking this crap. You tell my secretary—Eulie, damn you! You tell Eulie! You tell my _wife_! What the hell makes you think I want Max to hear about that? You told your daughters? You told Sarah? And now the _scientists_? What do you think you're doing, you son—"

Doctor Gushman, the stuttering scientist whom Donna had never heard string together a coherent sentence not directly relating to computers, threw himself between Calavicci and the victim of his inebriated tongue-lashing. "Captain," he said, his voice low and level. Calavicci tried to push him aside, but the slightly podgy man put a hand on his breastbone and stopped him. "Captain, why don't you come up to my office and cool down a little? I-I'm sure that Doctor Eleese can take care of the congressman for a little while."

Calavicci stared at him, chest heaving, and then turned his eyes on Davies, who had backed against Penvenen, clearly shocked and alarmed by the tirade.

The HR man stepped away from the politician and moved forward, his voice like cheap velvet. "He's right, Captain. Go with Doctor Gushman and take a few deep breaths," he said with pleasant composure. "We'll be fine here."

Calavicci allowed Gushman to lead him towards the door. As he passed Davies, the administrator muttered something that made the statesman go white. It wasn't English. It wasn't French or Spanish. Donna knew the captain spoke Italian, but it wasn't that, either. It sounded almost Japanese, but it wasn't.

She forced herself to turn back to Davies. From the look in his eyes, he wasn't going to press the Vietnam issue again. "As Captain Calavicci was saying, Congressman," she began frigidly, "the new projection algorithm allows us to…"

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

Gushman sat Al down in the one chair that the cramped office contained, closing the door carefully. The anger had been shattered, and in its place was guilt.

He had yelled at Les. Les. His buddy. Aside from Stevie and Celestina, and maybe Max, the only real friend he had.

Al buried his face in his hands. Oh God, what had he just done?

"Captain, what were you thinking?" Gushman implored quietly. "A member of the Committee—he could shut us down!"

Al hadn't even thought of that. All he had been thinking of was how desperately he wanted the reminiscences about Vietnam to stop. "Last night," he croaked, drawing his hand across his brow and trying to compose himself. "Last night was rough."

Rough was an understatement. Al couldn't believe it had happened. He couldn't believe he had done that to Max. If that hadn't destroyed the marriage right there… First, he had induced her to dine with Les, when Al had known how nervous the prospect had made her. That was to say nothing about what had happened during the meal. Al had really thought Les would figure out that he wanted to talk about something—anything!—other than 'Nam. Al wasn't sure what he had based that supposition on, since Les obviously had no problems with the memories and saw the whole thing as an interesting chapter of his life. Maybe Davies had no reason to be ashamed of his conduct over there. Maybe he was a stronger man than Calavicci, one who had never screamed until his lungs could no longer supply air, one who had never cracked under torture, who had never begged for mercy, who had never wept through a long, lonely night of terror and desperation. He probably _was_ such a man, Al reflected: stronger, braver. Better. That wasn't hard to achieve, given the miserable comparator.

Still, Max should not have had to be faced with those problems. She was a sweet, innocent young lady who had never in her life been faced with true evil. She shouldn't have to cope with it now, either, but thanks to Al's stupidity and selfishness she had. It was all his fault. He had known Davies' tendencies when it came to conversation, and he had still, in a frantic attempt to distract the Congressman from his favorite topic, allowed Maxine near him. He had made another idiotic mistake, and someone close to him had been caught in the fallout. As usual.

After retreating into the shower to scrub away some small part of the shame that the night's revelations—to say nothing of the lies he had fed Max—had brought, Al had had no idea how he would face his young wife. He had finally made up his mind to try to carry on as if nothing had happened. After all, he had brazened out much more terrible situations than this one. The chances were slim-to-none that a woman in Maxine's position would let you get away with a trick like that, but Al felt he had to try. He had come out of the bathroom smiling and chipper, though his thoughts were black and his heart was aching. Maxine, bless her heart, had not said a word. She had met him halfway and given him the gift of desperately needed distraction. And he had made damned sure to be up and out of the suite before she woke up this morning, hiding in his office where he could nurse his wounds in the only way he knew how.

Gushman was watching him, his eyes bewildered but not disgusted. He didn't understand what Al had just done. He didn't see how he had erupted all over a friend. God. Would Les ever forgive him? Had Calavicci just screwed up one of the last important friendships he had left?

"I can see that," the scientist murmured. "Would you like a drink—"

"God, yes!" Al blurted out over the programmer's words. Yes. He needed a drink.

"—of water?" Gushman finished, the words coming out almost as a hiccough of surprise.

Al buried his head in his hands. "Yeah," he said hoarsely. "Sure. Water."

"O-okay. I'll g-g-get it," Gushman said. His stammer was caused by nerves, rather than a true speech impediment. He headed for the door.

"Wait! No!" Al cried before he could stop himself. Gushman turned. Their eyes met: the red, desperate ones, and the intelligent, kind ones. "Please, don't—"

Al couldn't vocalize his need, his frantic need not to be left alone right now. He didn't have to. Gushman released the handle and moved back towards the desk. He stood with his hands clasped in front of him. "Okay," he agreed simply.

There was a long silence.

"Damn it," Al muttered at last. "I mighta slugged him."

"But you didn't," Gushman said.

"Only 'cause you stopped me." Al screwed his eyes tightly closed. The next words required effort, but the choler was passing and the guilt running its course, from the initial nausea to the gnawing remorse that he knew was going to last long after Les had returned to Washington. With effort, he forced them out.

"Thanks… Gooshie."


	21. Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY

The little sliver of green space wedged between a warehouse and a behemoth of an apartment building overlooked the Hudson River. He sat on the grass, staring at the murky waters that from a distance looked almost beautiful.

Today, he was wearing a comfortable and serviceable pair of blue jeans, and a t-shirt bearing the Annapolis crest. The former he had purchased during his stint at Penn, studying archaeology and Egyptology. The latter he had inherited from…

A lump bobbed in his throat and he hugged his abdomen. Inherited. Once upon a time, that word had been the euphemism used to take the sting off of wearing his older brother's hand-me-downs. It meant something entirely different now.

It was Saturday, and most of the city was still moving lazily through its morning routine. Sleeping late was not a habit that a farm boy acquired early, and despite the fact that he had been out of Indiana for thirteen years, he was still and early riser. This had been a handy thing when he had started at MIT. Now, he found, it just created that many more hours in the day in which to worry about his future.

Yesterday had been a disaster. He had been invited to present his theories to a board of faculty from Princeton. An excellent opportunity, he had thought at the time. Though nervous, he had pressed forward, assuring himself that it would be no different than his doctoral defenses. He would be facing a panel of experts, all well versed in physics and the abstracts of science, and all equipped to understand exactly what he was saying. Instead, he had found himself standing before the president of the university, the deans of several of the colleges, three alumni, and the head of the physics department. Unable to adapt his talk to this decidedly unqualified audience on such short notice, he had soldiered on as originally planned. The glazed eyes and bewildered smiles were still haunting him. When at last he was finished, the final stroke had fallen. The physicist, the one person on the whole panel who should have understood every word, had addressed him.

"It sounds like a very interesting theory, son," he had said. "A little too advanced for me to get my head around, but an interesting theory all the same."

So he was back to square one. Yes, Friday had been a nightmare, and Monday wasn't looking much better. In fact, the next six decades were probably going to be more of the same. They all thought he was an eccentric, a crackpot who dwelt on the abstract and postulated on the impossible. No one wanted to give tenure or research funds to a quantum physicist talking neural holography and time travel.

No one with anything to lose would put their neck on the line for a person like that.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Captain Albert Calavicci wanted to believe that he was a man who could cope with any situation. He knew this was patently untrue, but clinging to the illusion was a crucial part of keeping himself from disintegrating at the seams. Most of the time he could at least keep up a fair imitation of control. After all, once an actor, always an actor. He had help, too. The whiskey was an invaluable ally. Bright clothes made him feel energetic and confident. To take the edge off of life's anxieties, he had expensive cigars. In a world where he was all too aware of his powerlessness in the face of fate's vicissitudes, flirting gave him some sense of control.

All of this flew out the window, however, whenever someone started to cry.

Maxine's rosy lips puckered. Her blue eyes flooded with disappointed tears. She sobbed, and he switched off the engine that he had only just fired up.

"Aw, kiddo, don't cry!" Al pleaded. "Maxie, honey, don't cry!"

"I can't do it!" she wept, hugging her abdomen and rocking a little. "I can't! I'm such a klutz!"

"You are _not_ a klutz!" Al contradicted. "You are _definitely_ not a klutz! I should know."

She looked up in surprise as she caught his drift, and then started to cry harder than ever. "But that's natural," she moaned. "Everyone can do _that_. It's not special at all!"

"Now you listen to me!" Al said sternly. "You listen to me! It _is_ special. Everything about you is special. You haven't got an ordinary bone in your body!"

"I have so!" she sobbed. "I'm totally ordinary. Stupid and ugly and clumsy…"

Al realized abruptly that she really meant it. This wasn't her way of exorcising the embarrassment of a lousy tryout. She was really convinced that what she was saying was the truth. He didn't know why a great kid like Max would have self-esteem problems, but she obviously did. He shimmied towards her, encumbered only a little by the parking brake.

"You're not," he said, reaching to pet her face. "You're beautiful and smart and special. And you're not clumsy, either."

"I am!" she sobbed. "I can't go six feet without falling!"

"That's not true either," Al said gently, pulling her into a consoling hug. "You musta gone five yards last night!"

She snorted.

"Well," he amended, "maybe three and a half."

She leaned against him, resting her head on his breastbone. He rubbed her arm with the embracing hand, and stroked her hair with the fingers of his left. "I'll never do it," she said despairingly.

"Sure you will!" Al said. "That was just the first try. You haven't even been skating for a whole month. Give it time: one of these days you'll be the best jammer in Arizona!"

She looked up at him with wet eyes. "You really think so?" she whispered.

Al planted a kiss on her forehead. "Doesn't matter what I think," he said. "What matters is whether or not _you_ believe you can. Whether you want it enough to make it happen."

She let out a tiny sob and reached to hug him. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm being such a baby."

He rested his cheek on her hair. "Poor Maxie," he said. "It's been a lousy week, hasn't it?"

Lousy and a half. After his meltdown on Sub-Level Omega, Al had had to go back out there and apologize to Davies. That had been one of the hardest things he'd done in a long time. He had been crippled by shame and remorse, begging forgiveness of the friend he had hurt and expecting rejection. He had said some unforgivable things. The English maledictions that had slipped out had been bad enough, but he'd gone and done something truly horrible, much worse than any American profanity. In Vietnamese, he had hissed one of the favorite phrases of the camp commander at Briarpatch. One of the phrases every POW in that camp had heard over and over again during each and every torture session. Loosely translated, the words meant "Confess or be punished like the criminal you are." It was a sentance that even more than a decade after the fact was enough to drag a man back into hell. For saying that to his fellow repatriate, Al didn't deserve or expect to be forgiven. Yet to his surprise, Les had just grinned, clapped him on the shoulder, and asked if they could get on with the propulsion tests. He had left that evening, smiling and happy, but Al couldn't help but think that his irrational outburst had done permanent damage to their friendship.

He had yet to gauge the damage to his _marriage _that this visit had caused. Maxine had not brought up the matter of his time in Vietnam yet, and Al was beginning to have real hope that she wouldn't. Having expected the emotionally charged inquisition he would have gotten from Ruthie, or the imperious demands for information that Sharon would have made, Al was surprised and grateful that Maxine wasn't going to make a fuss. God only knew what was going on in her pretty blonde head, but at least he didn't seem to disgust her. What more could he ask?

"Pretty lousy, yeah," Maxine murmured, cuddling closer. She fell briefly silent, and Al let the close physical contact sooth the emptiness inside. "Al, do you really think I can do it?" she whispered at last.

"Of course you can do it!" he said emphatically. "You can do anything! You're a goddess."

She laughed a little and sat up, dabbing at her eyes. Al rummaged in his pocket. "Here, blow your nose," he told her, surrendering his handkerchief.

She complied, sniffling a little and scrubbing at her cheeks. She had not worn makeup for the tryout, and so did not have to worry about smearing any paint. "Are we going to Wickenburg?" she asked.

"Don't you want to go shopping?" Al asked her, puzzled. She was always hankering after shopping trips in the city.

"What about Stevie and Celestina?" Maxine queried.

"I've missed a week here and there before," Al said. His chest constricted. He hated to let Stevie down, but he had to look after Max, too. If he didn't, he'd lose her the same way he had lost Sharon, and he didn't know if he could deal with a breakup like that again.

"Esteban is always so excited to see you," Maxine remarked quietly. "Won't he… won't he know if we don't come. I mean, can he…"

Al knew what she was trying to articulate, and he was grateful for the rational voice that told him she wasn't trying to be malicious. She had never had any experience with kids like Stevie, and she was trying to deal with the new situation. "Can he understand it's Saturday and I should be coming?" he finished for her. "Yes. He's not an idiot, he's just got a lower I.Q. than most kids his age. Think four or five years old instead of ten."

"Right. Four or five," Maxine breathed. "You said that before.

"Well, it's true," Al said, his voice creaking inadvertently as he thought of Trudy. "but he knows the difference between weekends and school days."

"Then he'll miss you," Max ventured.

"I guess he will," Al said, trying to sound casual as he changed the subject. He had to let Maxine have her day, just one day to invest in a better marriage. He couldn't stand to lose her. "What do you want to do for lunch? I was thinking we could hunt down a grocery store, pick up some supplies and find a park for a picnic."

"I've got a better idea," Maxine said. "Why don't we drive to Wickenburg, find a grocery store _there_, and then take Stevie and Celestina to a park for a picnic?"

Al felt a little of the ice of loneliness melt from around his heart. "You're a wonderful woman, Max," he said, starting up the Buick's engine again.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Maxine sat on the edge of the shabby blanket that Celestina had furnished to serve as a table, finishing her apple. Al was fixing himself a second sandwich. Celestina was busy packing away the leftover pasta salad. Between bites of the firm, sweet fruit, Max was listening politely as the child chattered nonsensically but very happily away, picking at the bun of his almost untouched sandwich.

"An' I climbed an' I climbed ALL the way to the top of the thlide!" he said, pointing at the playground apparatus where he had been engaged for a few minutes prior to mealtime. "I theed a cloud, I theed a bird, and I theed the thand WAY down!" he said.

"That sounds like fun," Maxine replied softly and a little awkwardly. She still wasn't comfortable with these people, but she knew how important they were to Al and she wanted him to be happy.

"Yup, yup," said Stevie. He picked up the dill pickle sitting on the edge of his paper plate between finger and thumb. Sealing his lips around one end, he began to suck on it noisily. Al looked up from his work to smile fondly. Maxine's mood improved instantly at the sight.

Al had been miserable the last couple of days, ever since the night they had dined with the congressman and Al had told her that he had been a prisoner of war. He was trying so hard to pretend that there was nothing wrong, but Max wasn't an idiot any more than Stevie was, and she could see that something was bothering her husband. He smiled and laughed and joked whenever there was anyone around to see, but until just now no expression of merriment had survived the journey to his eyes. When left alone, he would slip almost instantly into melancholy silence. He would stare off into space, focusing on something a hundred miles away or far in the past. When she tried to address him during these fits, he would come around slowly, and it would take him a long time to raise the mask of mirth again.

She was scared that he would try to drink his way back to happiness, but there was no sign of that. Of course, his eyes were red a lot, and he always seemed to wake up with a headache, and once in a while she thought she could smell whiskey on his breath, but that couldn't be, because there was no whiskey in any of the cupboards anymore. She decided she was just being paranoid.

Esteban was still sucking on the pickle, growing noisier by the second. Maxine looked on in amusement. "Does that taste good?" she asked, trying yet again to do what she was sure Al wanted her to and try to befriend his little companion.

In answer, Esteban removed the limp, desiccated remains of the pickle from his mouth, and gave it to Maxine. He had sucked all the brine out of it without taking even one bite. Maxine dropped it onto her plate with a convulsive shudder.

Celestina looked up and took in the scene in display. "Esteban!" she cried. "You must not do this! _That_," she amended. "You must not do _that_."

"Oh, it's okay, really," Max said, using her legwarmer as a hand towel. In her books, dill was called a _weed_ for a reason. Namely: it should be uprooted and thrown in the back alley dumpster. Regardless, she put on a smile. "I guess he really likes pickles."

"Loves 'em!" Al said, beginning to gather up the used dishes.

Celestina had drawn her son into her lap, and she was still scolding him gently in her broken English. "Esteban, you must not share the food you have put in your mouth! Only with Mama!"

The boy had his fingers in his mouth and was watching her with somber brown eyes. "An' Mithta Al?" he asked.

Celestina sighed. "Sí, if Señor Calavicci will let you do it," she said. Then she kissed her son's forehead and smoothed his curls. "Now you eat your nice sandwich he has made for you."

Esteban wrinkled his blunt little nose. "Yuckola," he said.

Maxine caught a laugh in her hand. That was Al's word. He always spoke it with such conviction that you almost had to take him seriously, but coming from the lips of a lisping little boy, you could see it for what it was: absurd.

"Do not say that, Esteban! You love sausage!" Celestina said in alarm.

"Yeah, he does," Al insisted, stiffening a little.

"Yuckola," Esteban repeated.

His mother shook her head mournfully. "Never will he eat," she said. "Everything I give to him, it seems he does not want it."

Al had his eyes fixed on her as if he could bore a hole through her skull. "He doesn't want it?" he said. "He hasn't been eating?"

"He never will eat at school," she said, her arms wrapping around her child. "At home he tells me he does not want to. Sometimes he eats, when you come to visit. Sometimes breakfast. But he is getting thin again."

"Yeah, yeah, I thought so," Al said, scooting across the blanket and touching Esteban's cheek. His brows were caving with worry. "Whatsa matter, sport? Don't you feel good?"

"I feel good," the boy protested. "Feel real good! I'm gonna play! C'mon, lady, let'th go and play!" He tried to writhe out of his mother's lap, beaming eagerly at Maxine. "I wanta play!"

"We should take him to the hospital!" Al was saying. Maxine frowned. Take him to the hospital because he wouldn't eat his sandwich? It sounded like a gross overreaction.

Celestina's eyes went wide, and she released her hold on Esteban. He tumbled onto the blanket and scrambled to his feet, tugging on Maxine's arm. "C'mon, lady! Let'th play!"

"Hospital?" his mother cried. "Today?"

"This week, for sure," Al said.

"But already he goes this week, has tests on his blood and his bones," she protested. "On Thursday he goes."

"I forgot about that," Al said, glancing at the boy with anxiety in his eyes. He frowned thoughtfully. "I guess it can wait until Thursday."

"C'mon, lady! Mack-theen!" Esteban begged.

Max smiled. "Okay, buddy," she said. "You want to try the swings?''

"Yup, yup!" the boy said sunnily. Maxine got to her feet and allowed herself to be led away. Behind her she could hear Al interrogating Celestina about the child's habits and sleep patterns.

It didn't make any sense. Esteban looked perfectly healthy to Max. Small for his age, and of course not quite like other children, but he certainly didn't look ill!

"Mack-theen!" Esteban cried, frantic with frustration. He was trying to climb onto the swing the way one would climb onto a crate: knees first. Max guided him into it properly. His face erupted into an enormous smile. "Thank you, lady!" he applauded.

Max ruffled his hair the way his mother was wont to. "You're welcome," she said, and she moved around behind him. Taking a deep breath, she started to push. She had seen people do this before, and it seemed to work, because soon the child was whizzing back and forth like a pendulum, laughing gleefully every time her hands made contact with his back. The sound made her smile.

Maybe she could befriend him after all.


	22. Chapter TwentyOne

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Jessica Ananda—Jess to her small patients—was a pediatric oncologist. Tall and plump, with kind eyes and a gentle, loveable face, she divided her time almost equally between the Children's Hospital in Phoenix, and Wickenburg's small cancer clinic and palliation unit. She was a fiercely intelligent and uncommonly compassionate woman, and one of the few physicians Al had ever known with a real gift for seeing her patients as people. More than that, she saw them as children. She moved through the corridors of the hospital in her cheerfully colored scrubs, with a stuffed tiger named "Cherry" riding in her breast pocket, dispensing medical care and sunshine. No matter how sick the kids were, she knew how to make them smile.

Adults, however, were more difficult to distract. Al fixed her with his best commander's eye. "What's wrong with him?" he demanded.

Ananda glanced over her shoulder at the recovery ward bed where Celestina, who had managed to get the morning off work, was consoling Stevie. The little boy was still in pain from the bone marrow aspiration he had just undergone. The physician turned back to the man addressing her, smiling kindly. "His blood counts are normal. Deviation among the cells is within acceptable limits. We won't get the biopsy results until Monday, but I think he's fine."

"Then why isn't he eating?" Al asked. "Why is he always tired? He's losing weight! That's not normal! Kids should be growing: they shouldn't lose weight!"

"That's true, Captain, but it _is_ natural for children to go through phases of fussiness," the physician said "He has lost only thirteen ounces since his last exam, and he hasn't stopped eating entirely, has he?"

"Well, no," Al admitted. "But—"

Ananda shifted her hold on the clipboard she always carried. "Captain, I know you love Esteban very much—"

"Like!" Al corrected sharply. "I _like_ Stevie a lot. Don't get carried away."

He shuddered. God forbid he should love Stevie. That was a recipe for heartbreak for himself, and sure-fire misery for the child. The people Al loved were always the ones who ran off, or died horribly. Look at Momma. Pop. Trudy. Lisa. Beth. The people he loved were always the ones he let down.

"You care about him," Ananda agreed, pulling back to try to amend her unwitting blunder. "I realize you are a close friend of the family, and you have done more for him than many friends would."

"I've just done what I had to," Al contradicted. "Now tell me what's wrong with Stevie!"

"Captain, this is advice I often have to give parents," Ananda began.

Al's stomach lurched in misery. There really was something wrong!

Ananda, however, was still smiling. "I understand that once a child has been diagnosed with cancer, the natural impulse is to treat them as if they were made of glass. It's perfectly normal to try to protect them, and I don't mean to say that Esteban doesn't need special care and vigilance, because he does. Still, you can't let worry consume you. It isn't healthy for you or for Esteban or for his mother."

Al tried to slip a word in edgewise, but Ananda wouldn't let him. "Now, it is important to watch for early warning signs of relapse, but that doesn't mean that you should—or can—go through life sick with anxiety."

"I know that!" Al snapped. He was feeling shaky. The trip to the restroom while Ananda had been busy with Stevie had obviously been insufficient to steady his nerves—despite the fact that he had made the journey for the sole purpose of hiding in one of the stalls and nursing his tremors from the hip flask. He drew in a deep breath, trying to pull himself together. "I know that," he repeated, with a little more control.

Ananda's lips lost their smile, and the closest thing to anger Al had ever seen from her flickered in the green eyes. "Captain, have you been drinking?" she demanded coolly.

"Certainly not!" Al lied. Then he shrugged. "I'm just… I'm worried about Stevie.

The physician's expression softened again. "I know," she said. Then she turned to her clipboard. "Now, we've booked the follow-up appointment for Tuesday," she said. "We will discuss the results then, of course, but I noticed that Mrs. Penja has no telephone number on file with us."

"That's because she has no phone," Al said, more brusquely than he had intended to.

"I deduced that, Captain," Ananda told him mildly, no reproach in her voice. "I wondered if you would like to update your own number so that we could contact you as soon as we have any news.

Al eyed her warily. "You'd do that?" he asked.

"That way, if he tests positive we can make provisions for his care a little earlier," she said in response, "and if the result is negative, you can put your mind at ease."

"Well… thanks…" Al said, still a little surprised that she would make this gesture. He took the clipboard he was offered and scribbled down his two numbers at Starbright. Strictly speaking, he wasn't supposed to give those numbers out, ever, but this was a special case. "I appreciate that."

"It's nothing," Ananda said. There was a pause. "As soon as Nurse Greely decides Esteban is ready, you're free to go."

"Thanks," Al said again.

Ananda hesitated, as if unsure whether she should speak her mind. In the end, she decided she would. "Captain," she said quietly, "there are better ways to deal with stress."

Al felt his hackles rising. "Aw, what the hell do you know about it? You're a paediatrician, so heal the kid. Leave me alone!"

Unphased, the specialist nodded. "Very well, Captain. If you will excuse me."

Then she was gone. Al felt another crippling wave of guilt. It was getting to be far too familiar a feeling.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Maxine watched happily as the two co-ed teams faced off over the net. No one was very good, but they were all having fun, laughing and joking in science jargon as they batted the volleyball back and forth. Max, who had always excelled at any sport where height and long limbs were assets, felt a burst of proprietary satisfaction. These empowered and educated people were interacting with each other and having a great time—and they were doing it outside their labs and offices. She had done that. She had achieved that. For the first time in her life, she had accomplished something worthwhile. She had set her mind to a change and made it happen. It was a wonderful feeling.

She wasn't the only one on the bleachers today, either. The twenty-minute matches were long enough to give the players an invigorating workout, but also short enough that those who wanted to watch were able to justify the time out of their workday. With another surge of pride, Maxine reflected that she had thought of everything. She wasn't stupid. She _wasn't_.

The game ended, and having made not of the winning team, Maxine slipped away. The scientists were laughing and socializing, but there was no room for her in that. Half the time, she didn't even understand what they were saying. They spoke in abbreviations and acronyms, or used words she had never heard before. She knew to these people it was second nature to talk like that, but it made her feel ignorant and inferior. It was much easier just to slip out of the room.

She knew that she was the least educated person on the premises, unless you counted the little kids in the Project daycare on the surface. Belowground almost everyone had an advanced degree of some kind. Even Al had a Masters from M.I.T. The support staff was all college-educated. Even the enlisted Marines were all high school graduates.

Maxine couldn't say why it bothered her now, after years of being resigned to the reality that she would never amount to anything. Her one goal since leaving home and breaking away from her indifferent mother had been to get a job that would pay well enough that she didn't have to rely on a boyfriend for room and board. Having finally found one in Santa Fe, she had been prepared to go through life the way she was, wild, wanton and free. Then she had met Al, who actually thought she was beautiful. Al, who talked of Greek goddesses and advanced science. Al, who made her feel like a person with value and potential. He was opening her eyes to a world of new possibilities, and instead of making her happy, these revelations were breeding shame and discontent.

Part of the discontentment was due to loneliness, she thought. Al was never around. He had lost a lot of time, between the visits from the Committee and the days off for Esteban Penja's appointments. This made no sense to Maxine. The boy wasn't sick, but there had been a day of tests to confirm that, followed by another appointment to discuss _why _he wasn't sick. Although of course cancer patients needed special care, she didn't see why all of this was necessary, or why Al had to punish himself with insanely long days to compensate for this missed time.

A pleasant thought occurred to her. She would head down to Sub-Level Three and induce him to leave work on time for once. It was almost five o'clock, the hour at which even hard-working Phillip Prysock quit for the night. Everyone but Al knew that the workday ended then, and Maxine was going to see to it that for once the boss punched out on time.

She approached Al's office door, trying to look confident as she passed the secretary. She knocked just below the enameled nameplate.

"He's not in, honey," a kind voice informed her.

Max turned towards the woman behind the desk. Eulalie Pharris, Al's secretary. She and the two administrators kept Starbright running. "He's not?" the younger woman ventured.

"No. Left about ten minutes ago." Eulalie hesitated. "Mrs. Calavicci…"

"Oh, Maxine. You can call me Maxine."

"Maxine, is everything…" She paused, as if unsure how she should phase the question. "Is everything okay?"

"Oh, yeah," Max said. "Everything's fine. I just wanted to get him to come home for supper. Is he down in the lab?"

"He said he needed some fresh air," Eulalie said. "But _is_ anything wrong? He hasn't been himself lately."

"No," Maxine said softly. "No, he hasn't, has he?"

The secretary shook her head.

"It was Congressman Davies, I think," Maxine confessed. "He… Al…" she stopped. It didn't seem right to talk about it. "I don't think they agree about everything," she concluded lamely.

"When Davies was up here he was talking about the captain's time as a prisoner of war," Eulalie said. "Does he talk much about that? Al, I mean."

Maxine tried to hide her discomfort behind a smile. "Fresh air?" she said. "You mean he went outside for a cigar?"

"Oh, I don't think so," offered the secretary. "He usually just smokes in his office. I think he did go outside, though. That's certainly how it sounded."

"Thanks," Max said. She left the office and the amicably smiling Eulalie behind.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMW_

The Marine on duty just outside of the Sub-Level Zero doors directed Maxine to the firing range. She followed the well-maintained sidewalk that ran towards the hangars. The aboveground portion of Starbright Project was a bizarre combination of an experimental airfield, a military base, and an automobile factory. That portion, at least, Maxine found familiar. Even in the days of the post-oil-crisis recession and the abrupt shift to overseas production that had changed the automobile industry forever, her home state had been defined by its motorworks. There wasn't a city girl from Michigan who didn't know a little bit about cars, even if she did drive a rust bucket.

There wasn't a girl of Maxine's age and background, either, who didn't understand that guns weren't toys. Max was lucky, in that she had never actually witnessed a shooting. As a child, however, she had lived in a tough neighborhood. Her mother had slept with a rough crowd. Maxine herself had done time on the arm of a youth gang leader, just before she had finally shaken the dust of Grand Rapids off of her feet and set out on the hopeless quest for greener pastures. She knew the sound of gunfire

The sharp report of Al's weapon tore a startled gasp from her throat, even before she rounded the last corner. It was only the knowledge that she was approaching her husband, who was a considerate and fundamentally harmless man, that enabled Maxine to work up the courage to continue towards the source of the sound.

She found Al standing in the booth nearest her, head cocked to one side as he gazed down the length of the range. He was wearing enormous earmuffs and fiberglass goggles. His gun, an old-fashioned six-round revolver, was already back in a low-slung leather holster on his leg. Maxine tried to call out to him, but of course he could not hear her. She knew better than to sneak up on someone—even someone like Al—carrying a loaded firearm, so she just stood at the edge of the concrete patio, watching.

Al flexed his hand, wiggling his fingers and stretching his palm. Then with a lightning-quick motion, he drew, cocked and fired. The bullet struck just to the left of the bull's-eye. Impressed despite her instinctive disapproval of this kind of recreation, Maxine applauded.

Maybe the motion caught in his peripheral vision, or maybe he just had a sixth sense, but Al whirled around. Anxious surprise was quickly replaced with a smile of delight.

"Max!" he called, stepping out of the booth and spinning the revolver as he holstered it. He removed his earmuffs, and then the goggles, then swung his arm around her waist and kissed her. "You want to give it a try?"

"No!" she said, more harshly than she had meant to. Hurt flickered in Al's brown eyes, and Maxine kissed him, hoping he would understand that it wasn't a judgment on him. "It's not like you to leave work early," she observed.

"I stay late enough," Al told her, almost gruffly. Then he hooked the protective gear over his forearm and ran his fingers through her hair. "What can I do for you, Mrs. Calavicci?" he inquired, his voice taking on the low, velvety timbre that characterized his more romantic moods.

"Well," Maxine breathed, stroking his earlobe with her index finger and trying not to notice the way the hammer of the gun was grazing her leggings. "I thought we could have supper together for once."

An almost inaudible sigh escaped Al's lips. "Kiddo, I gotta admit," he said, "I'm a little short on liquid assets this month—"

"Oh, I don't want to go out!" Max said instinctively. Then she realized that he hadn't said anything about being short of money before… She shook it off, because she had more important things to think about, this evening's plans foremost among them. "I thought we could cook something, and have a… minty desert."

Al chuckled happily. "Well, if you insist…" he laughed. "Just give me a minute, okay?" He gestured at the firing range. Maxine watched as he quickly and efficiently put everything back in order. Then they walked back towards the main building together.

In the suite, Maxine started to chop vegetables for a stir-fry while Al cleaned the revolver with care. She waited until he was almost finished before she finally worked up the courage to speak.

"Isn't that a bit old-fashioned?" she asked.

Al looked up from his work. "What, this?" he asked, gesturing with the gun.

"Yeah…"

"It's not my regulation sidearm, if that's what you're asking," Al said. "This baby is for fun."

"Guns aren't for fun," Maxine said, the sentiment slipping out quickly and rather prudishly. "That's a deadly weapon."

"In the wrong hands, yeah," Al agreed. His eyes narrowed. "You had a bad experience with a gun, Maxie?"

"No…" she allowed, eyeing the piece nervously as he snapped the cylinder back into place and returned the gun to its holster. "I just don't like having it lying around the house."

Al laughed. "Oh-ho, so this is a house, is it?" he teased. He sat back and smiled at her. "You're a change from Sharon, you know that?"

Maxine smiled. She _hoped_ she was a change from his last wife! "I still don't like it," she said, but less seriously.

"Why?" Al asked. "It's not like there are any kids around, or are ever likely to be."

She stiffened. "I'm perfectly capable of having children," she said.

"I never said you weren't," Al told her, getting to his feet and carrying the gun and accessories towards the bedroom. "But I mean, you don't want kids."

Maxine had never really thought about it. She liked kids, other people's kids. The few encounters she had had with children since ceasing to be considered one herself had been pleasant. She liked Esteban Penja, or at least she figured she probably did. The notion of having children of her own, however, was a whole different thing. There was something romantic about the thought of carrying a baby, of being careful what you ate and how you exercised, avoiding alcohol because it wasn't good for the child. Babies probably loved you no matter what, and…

But what kind of a mother could she be? She hadn't had a good mother. She had never known any good mothers, except Celestina, whom she had only just met. No, she'd get it wrong, and the kid would be a lousy screw-up, just like her.

"No," Maxine said as Al came back into the room and poured a tablespoonful of olive oil into a skillet. "No, I don't want kids."

"So what's the problem?" he asked, his voice perfectly casual.

"I just… I don't like having guns in the house," Maxine repeated. Anxious to change the subject, she started into a play-by-play of the afternoon's volleyball game.

Al listened as if it were the most fascinating thing he had ever heard. He was a great guy.

_MWMWMWMWMWMMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Lying with Maxine's head on his chest, her toes—no longer tasting of mint—curled against his calf, Al almost dared to think that he could fall asleep. He wanted to. He knew it wasn't really healthy to have to take a drink of hard liquor just so you could make it through the night… but he knew, too, that if he didn't he would be in for another nightmare. Lately they had been getting worse. He kept dreaming about the last year of his captivity, the worst year. He had got himself into a lot of trouble trying to protect Bobby and the others, butting heads with Quon and the Bitch just because he was a stubborn idiot. Thank God the damned war had ended when it had. He couldn't imagine what it would have been like to spend even a month more than he had in 'Nam. He couldn't fathom how much worse things would have gotten, if he'd been allowed to keep on antagonizing his captors, pushing them a little farther and being beaten back a little harder each time. He shuddered at the thought. The damned Calavicci pride had almost killed him over there, and he was still paying for it now. Now, even ten years after repatriation, he kept remembering…

And he didn't want to remember. He just wanted to live in the present. To be happy. To sleep through a whole night.

He was glad Max didn't want kids. Sooner or later, the question had to come up in a marriage. So far, Al had been really lucky. None of his wives, from the career-driven Hungarian to sweet little Ruthie, had wanted kids. Sometimes he thought Sharon had, but at forty-three her habits were ingrained, and she had never really contemplated the question. Max, though, was young and beautiful, and Al had been secretly afraid that she _would_ want to be a mother. He didn't know what he would have done then. He certainly didn't want kids. He loved kids, sure, but he didn't want any of his own.

When he thought about kids, he missed Ruthie's family. She had had nieces and nephews of every age, from tiny baby Sarah to her big brother David, who had celebrated his Bar Mitzvah during Al's brief third marriage. Between split and divorce, Ruthie's youngest sister had had a new baby, and it was one of Al's true regrets that he had not been able to spend time with that little infant. Funny, how wonderful it was to have a large extended family. Funny how much you missed them when they were gone.

He didn't want kids. He was just glad Max didn't either.

He couldn't lie here all night. If he tried, he would fall asleep, and he knew once he fell asleep he would be back there, in the jungle…

Al shivered and slipped carefully away from Maxine, easing her head down onto the pillow. He reached the edge of the bed. In the next room, behind his old college texts…

"Al?"

The drowsy murmur halted him halfway to the door. She was still awake. Damn it, she was still awake.

"Max," he said, as casually as he could.

" 'S it morning?"

"Yeah, technically."

"Where are you going?"

Al bit back a sigh and bent to grope for their strewn clothing. "Nowhere, Maxie," he promised. "I'm just cleaning up."

"Come back to bed. We can do that later."

She was _really_ awake now. Al returned to the bed and crept back under the covers. She snuggled close to him, and he instinctively reached for her. Warm lips found his, and they embraced. He settled back, stroking her hair and hoping to lull her to sleep.

Presently, she spoke again. "Al," she said, and from her tone he knew she had been thinking about whatever she was about to say for quite a long time.

"Max," he mumbled.

"Al, what happens to people who don't finish high school?"

"Who don't what?" Al chuckled a little.

"Finish high school." She cuddled closer, kissing his neck.

"Nothing," Al said. "We don't have them summarily executed or anything, if that's what you're wondering." He understood her curiosity: it was only natural to puzzle over what life was like on the other side of the fence. "Life goes on. They sometimes have more trouble finding jobs than people with diplomas, but it's not the end of the world. Take Celestina. She has maybe a third grade education. She doesn't even read English. She's fine."

"Yeah," Maxine agreed. "But what about people who didn't finish high school when they were kids, but decide they want to now?"

"Now?" Al asked.

Maxine shifted a little, as if seeking a more comfortable position. "When they're older, I mean," she said.

"Oh. Well, there are schools that offer night classes," Al said. "They could take correspondence courses too, or get a private tutor, I guess. Then they take the equivalency exams for whatever state they're living in, and if they pass they get a diploma."

"Do all states have that?" Maxine asked. "I mean, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida?"

"Hawaii, Alaska, Oklahoma, yup," Al said. "You name a state, they've got some kind of high school equivalency program. A person would just have to get in touch with the right department at the legislature to find out the details."

"At the legislature," Maxine said. "I guess that probably takes a long time."

Al shrugged. "Depends how hard a person studies, I guess."

Maxine yawned. "I guess," she sighed. She kissed him again and laid her head down on his shoulder. Soon her breathing grew deep and steady, and her muscles began to relax.

When he was absolutely certain that she was asleep, Al moved into the other room and moved the book that concealed his main cache of liquor. As he drained two tumblerfuls, he mulled over the conversation he had just had.

High school equivalency? What kind of an issue was that to be bothering a girl like Max at two in the morning?

He shrugged it off. Armed against the nightmares, he went back to bed, hoping desperately that he had taken enough alcohol to let him sleep through the night.


	23. Chapter TwentyTwo

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Al was having a terrible day. He had awakened with a murderous headache. It had refused to respond to the standard therapy—two aspirin and a tumbler of bourbon—and by the time he kissed Max goodbye and made his way to the office, it was throbbing and pulsing. He hid in his office, covering the desk lamp with his handkerchief to filter the harsh glow of the hundred-watt bulb. He bent low over the quarterly statements and set about the task of the moment.

He had three different reports to amalgamate before the first of the year—damn the Committee and their eternal meddling!—and today he was trying to hammer together a draft of next year's budget. It was tedious, tiresome work: a part of his job that he hated with a vengeance. Al loved Starbright and wanted very much to see her soar and succeed, but he loathed this kind of pedantic drudgery.

Sometimes he wished he had never left NASA. Those had been great days—or at least after seven years of desk duty they seemed like great days. If he thought hard enough about it, that had been a less-than-idyllic time, too. It had been his first real shot at active duty since repatriation, though he had done some half-time administrative stuff at the base on San Diego, and there had been some very intense challenges to cope with. He had been struggling to make minimum weight through most of his time in Florida, hampered by habits born of the necessities of survival (foremost among them, the importance of ignoring the gnawing agonies of an empty belly). His background and his war record had posed their challenges, too, both when it came to dealing with the other astronauts and when it came to the press. And there had been the battle with claustrophobia…

Actually, now he really thought about it, that _had_ been a difficult time. Not boring, maybe, but full of struggles, disappointments and humiliations. In fact, Al wasn't sure he could remember a time that hadn't been his lot. Struggles, disappointments and humiliations… sounded like standard fare: when the real world wasn't taking its merciless toll, there were always the dreams…

His eyes drifted from the heap of charts and spreadsheets to the model Cougar at the edge of his desk. He stared at it, transfixed. He had not gone through with the usual monthly rotation of ornaments, because he had been too damned busy. Now he was glad. He reached out to touch the delicate wing, a scale replica of the real thing. _Those_ had been good years. He had been caught up in the wonders of life, young and clever, healthy, athletic, handsome. The Navy had been giving him a chance to discover who he was, an opportunity to stretch his wings and use his talents. For the first time in his life, he had had a crowd of buddies, real friends who accepted him for who he was, without reservations, valuing him for the unique perspective and special skills that he brought to the team. Lisa. Beth. His beautiful Beth…

The bubble of blissful nostalgia imploded, and Al was left alone with his plastic plane, his pile of paperwork, and the grim reality of the present. He wasn't young anymore. His mind was neither as sharp, nor as deft as it once had been. Healthy? Hah. Athletic? Not anymore. The friends were gone. His wings had been clipped. His one talent was surviving, at all costs, and to hell with the consequences. He had no value.

At least, he reflected miserably, he was still sort of good looking, as long as you didn't look beyond the face and the clothes. The thought of his marred body filled him with a deep, aching shame. He was imperfect. Twisted. Half a man. No wonder he had no friends anymore. No matter no one wanted him.

No one but Maxine. Dear, sweet Maxine. She didn't mind, bless her heart.

'_Hah! Who do you think you're fooling?_' a voice taunted. '_She doesn't mind? Maybe that's 'cause she doesn't know the truth. She has no idea how pathetic you are. She doesn't know what happened over there. What you did over there. She's living in a dream world. What will happen when she wakes up?_'

'_Stop it!_' Al thought sternly. '_Stop it!_' He took another mouthful of vodka.

It wasn't enough. The voice kept on attacking, hammering away at what was left of his sense of self-worth.

'_Sure, she likes you _now_, but what's she gonna do when you wake her up screaming? What's she gonna do when she finds out you lied to her? Lied so you could keep drinking. You dirty drunk: you lied to her!_'

'_I didn't. I never said I stopped._'

'_You're letting her believe it! Just like you're letting her believe you're sane. Stable. She thinks you're dashing, strong, perfect… if she knew the truth!_'

"No," Al whispered, not realizing that he was speaking aloud. He stared at what was left of the vodka in his glass. "No. Max isn't like that. She cares about me."

'_Cares_?' the voice whooped in disbelief. '_Cares? About you? Why the hell would she care about you? Why the hell would anyone? How long till Maxine gets sick of you, and dumps you like the others did? Like they all do? How long till she realizes her life's worth more than this?'_

Al drained the glass, but the voice followed him as he rose and made his way towards the encyclopedia.

'_You weren't seriously imagining that this marriage was going to last, were you?_' it cackled.

This was exactly what Al had been imagining. Maxine was an angel. They got along so well. Of course it was going to last. Of course it would work out.

'_Oh, really? How long did you figure you could make this last? A year? Maybe two? You lasted eight years married to Beth… maybe eight?_'

'_Eleven. I was married to Beth for eleven years_,' Al corrected automatically.

The laughter echoed through his mind. He poured the bourbon with a hand shaking so badly that he spilled all over the bookcase. With an oath, he snatched his handkerchief. The room was suddenly bathed in light, and it sent daggers into his brain as he hastened to wipe up the mess.

'_Oh, I see. Well, she was only married to _you_ for eight years. You know what she was doing while you were celebrating your ninth anniversary? Sleeping with that lawyer. Forgetting all about you. Just what you deserved. What she deserved, too. A real husband. A real family. Not you. Beth deserved better than you._'

Al shuddered as he knocked back half the bourbon.

'_Maxine deserves better, too! Look at you. You're more than twice her age. What kind of a marriage is this going to be? When you retire she'll still be in her thirties. By the time she's fifty, you'll be seventy-eight! She won't be your wife: she'll be your nursemaid! How long before she figures that out, huh? How long before she wakes up and realizes you could be her father? Hell, the age you were when you started sleeping around, you could be her _grandfather_! She's not stupid, you know. She's gonna figure it out, and when she does, she'll leave you._'

'_No,_' Al protested inwardly. '_No, not Max. Not Max_.'

'_She'll leave you!_' the voice crowed triumphantly. '_She'll find a younger man, and she'll leave you! Isn't that what happened with Sharon? A younger man, a whole, healthy man? And that was _two years ago_! And Sharon was born in the same decade you were! Max is younger, and now you're older! How long before she goes the same way?_'

"She won't!" Al snapped, his pain once again finding its way into words. "She won't!"

'_Oh, yes she will. You know it. You know it. You know..._'

As Al drained the glass, the voice fell silent. He caressed the bourbon bottle fondly as he poured out another helping. He took two long swallows before daring to conceal his stash once again and move back towards his chair. He sat, exhausted, and gave himself another mouthful of peace before folding his arms on top of the papers and letting his aching head rest upon them.

When was it going to end?

Was it ever going to end?

Oh, God. What if it didn't?

The telephone yanked him cruelly away from the oblivion he was starting to sink into. He fumbled for the receiver, trying to clear his throat before answering.

"Calavicci," he said.

The panicked voice of one of the chemistry technicians met him. "Captain? Doctor Thorgard has locked down G-lab! We have a containment malfunction!"

Al sat up as if someone had rammed a steel rod through the center of his spinal column. "What?" he snapped.

"A containment malfunction! He's locked down the lab. No one can get in!"

"Or out…" Al breathed, the safety protocols coming to mind. If the lab was locked down, that meant that whoever was in there at the time of the malfunction was still in there. "Have you contacted Emergency Services?" he asked. That division of Maintenance usually had very little on their plate, but they were well-trained, and regularly drilled, and ready to spring into action if the need ever arose. This was the first time that it ever had, at least as far as Al knew.

"They're here, yes," the tech told him.

"How serious is it?" Al asked. "Has anyone been hurt?" He took a quick swallow from his glass, the better to soothe his nerves and calm the hammering in his chest. If this situation was half as bad as it had the potential to be, he would need a clear and level head.

"I don't know. I don't—I don't think so…"

"Fine. I'll be right down," Al promised. "Right down."

He rose, a little unsteady on his feet. By the time he reached the door, the world was back on an even keel again.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Adrian Thorgard bent to peer at the sealed container of reagent. It looked so innocuous: a clear fluid in a shatterproof vial, stored inside a reinforced crucible. It was a derivative of phenol that they had been toying with for weeks. It was a potent carcinogen, and highly cytotoxic. Under ordinary circumstances in an above-ground lab a malfunction of the isolation hood would not have been such a cause for concern. Within the all-but-closed system of Starbright, extra precautions were necessary, and his staff had taken all of them. He glanced at the group of gloved, masked and goggled scientists, sitting on stools around the far workbench and conversing amicably. There was no need to panic. Any damage that would be done had been done already. Doctor Selby, who had been working with the reagent when the flow in the fume hood had inexplicably reversed, had taken care to return the toxin to its proper container before sealing off the deactivated hood. It wasn't likely that they were going to see any long-term adverse effects from the brief exposure, and if they did, there was nothing that was going to change it now.

Outside the lab, the Emergency Services crew was looking into the next step, so there was nothing to do but wait. It wasn't a true emergency, so Thorgard wandered back towards his staff. They were the finest minds the government could entice away from academia and the all-too-lucrative private sector. Highly educated, intelligent, professional.

And, he noticed as he came into earshot, just as malicious and uncharitable as the cafeteria staff.

"I heard he has these nightmares," Doctor Hartford said, her blue eyes sweeping her audience. "As in screaming, writhing nightmares. Violent."

"Really?" Doctor Adams asked. "How would anyone know that?"

Doctor Stavlosky giggled a little. "Well, he had one the night we spent together," she said.

Everyone looked at her. "You slept with him?" Hartford asked.

Stavlosky's expression was difficult to read, though her voice held just a hint of defensiveness. "Well, it was more than a year ago," she said. "Before he was drinking like he is now."

"He's got charm, I'll give him that," Doctor Ramji said. "And he's slept with half the staff."

"I'd say it's more like a tenth," Hartford quibbled. "At least, I don't _think_ he's gay."

"The way he drools over anything with two X-chromosomes, I'd say not," snickered Adams. "Mind you…"

"I'm more concerned about the drinking," said Doctor O'Hara.

"Be fair," Hartford warned. "No one has actually seen him drinking, have they?"

"His secretary's caught him a couple of times," Ramji said. "That's what I heard from Human Resources."

Hartford snorted disdainfully. "Jean Talarski?"

"As a matter of fact, no," said Ramji. Jean Talarski was the Project gossip and had done a brief stint as the captain's girlfriend following the collapse of his previous marriage. "No, it was that clean-cut man with the three-hundred-dollar suits. What's-his-name…"

"Oh, I know who you mean," Stavlosky said. "He's the cute one with the perfect hair. Ugh! What _is_ his name?"

"I don't remember," Ramji admitted. "But he said the captain's drinking has been getting worse, and if it starts interfering with his work—"

"That's quite enough!" Thorgard said sharply. "It's none of our business whether he drinks or not—and it's _certainly_ not any concern of ours whether or not he has nightmares! Leave the man alone. He is a capable administrator and a decent human being, and I will not brook this kind of malicious gossip in my laboratory! The next person who says a word against Captain Calavicci will be officially reprimanded!"

Doctor Venables, who had been standing by the door of the lab, watching the proceedings through the Plexiglas window, laughed out loud. "Looks like the cavalry has arrived!" he called.

Like a group of schoolchildren herding towards an interesting sight on the playground, the scientists ran for the door. Thorgard shook his head sadly. It seemed so unjust that a man with as much to offer the world as Captain Calavicci had should be struggling with a dangerous and potentially crippling habit. Thorgard hesitated to call it an addiction, but the sad truth was that the captain's drinking was much more conspicuous than he seemed to think. Wandering around the Project with liquor on his breath and a glazed, bloodshot quality to his eyes… who could blame people for leaping to the obvious conclusions?

At least they were no longer whispering maliciously about the new Mrs. Calavicci. She was carving out a place of her own, and between the intramurals and her gift for planning social events, she was winning her way into most hearts. Even Donna Eleese had warmed up towards her. Thorgard was glad. Maxine Calavicci was a charming young lady, and she deserved to be happy and well-liked.

The scientists were snickering and whispering, and Thorgard frowned. What now?

As he strode towards them, they fell silent, pulling back like the upbraided children they were. Thorgard looked out the window. Captain Calavicci and Colonel Smythe were talking. At least, the Marine was talking. The captain seemed to be railing irrationally, gesticulating wildly while his face contorted in dramatic expressions. Even at this distance, Thorgard could see the undeniably red caste of his eyes. He had been drinking.

With a weary sigh, the chemist turned his back to the sight. He could see the vindicated looks in his subordinates' eyes. They were right, and they knew it.

"I don't care," Thorgard said in response to their unspoken _I told you so_. "I will not tolerate gossip in my lab. It is inappropriate, juvenile and unacceptable. Do I make myself clear?"

As one, they nodded, chastised. Thorgard walked away from them towards the telephone next to the storeroom. It was ringing insistently. He picked up the receiver and set about making arrangements for decontamination.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

It had been a very successful day, Dan Penvenen reflected, indulging in a luxurious smile of satisfaction as he entered his room and strode towards the bed. Of course, it was an unfortunate setback for the Project, since the irrational malfunction necessitated a complete overhaul of the fume hoods before any chemistry-related research could be permitted to continue. However, no one had been hurt, the Emergency Services staff had performed admirably, and most importantly of all, Calavicci had show up on the scene emotionally charged and very, very obviously inebriated.

His days were numbered. A few more incidents like this, and it wouldn't be difficult at all to convince the Committee that Calavicci was unsuitable for a position of such trust and importance. The defunct Naval officer had a few friends on the board, but Dan doubted that personal feelings would hold much weight in the light of his unacceptable behavior. Of course, to really clinch the case, Calavicci would have to do something absolutely unforgivable, but Dan reminded himself, yet again, that it was surely only a matter of time.

Right now, he had a more pressing issue to cope with. The biohazard isolation hoods were not supposed to reverse. The fans were designed to constantly and perpetually suck air out of the environment, through the hood, into a high-efficiency particulate arrestance filter, effectively protecting the environment and the rest of Starbright from any toxic substances within the hood. The fans were never, under _any_ circumstances, supposed to reverse. At best, they were dealing with a freak accident. At worst, it was sabotage.

And the suspicion of sabotage was what had brought Dan to Starbright in the first place, long before he had had any intimation of how unstable the Project Administrator was.

Dan picked up the phone that no one else on the Project knew that he had, and dialed out for Virginia.


	24. Chapter TwentyThree

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The boardroom on Sub-Level Omega was very clearly delineated into two camps, and no one had even spoken yet. Phillip Prysock felt vaguely ill as he looked at the grave faces from his place at the head of the long table. Instinctively or by design, they had physically divided into their factions, and the imbalance between the two sides was perhaps as unnerving as anything.

On Phillip's right sat Colonel Smythe, Head of Security; Donna Eleese, Head of Quantum Physics; Doctor Demeter, Head of Particle Physics on Sub-Level Six; Doctor Kostky, the philosopher who served as chair of the Project's Research Ethics Council; and Doctor Cartwright, the civilian doctor who co-managed the Project's clinic. To his left was Doctor Thorgard, the Head of Chemistry; Doctor Gushman, the chief programmer; and Commander Bancroft, the Chief Medical Officer and after Calavicci the most senior Naval officer at Starbright. Prysock didn't think he was actually in the same category as the other two, for Thorgard was actively taking Calavicci's part, and Gushman was a creature of loyalty. Bancroft was likely sitting with his senior officer's supporters out of decorum more than solidarity. Still, at least his presence leveled the playing field a little.

The Deputy Administrator drew a deep breath and forced himself to speak. "First of all," he said; "I want it understood that this is completely off the record. Nothing said here leaves this room. We're not going to refer back to it, ever. Do I make myself clear?"

There was murmured assent. Orson Bancroft shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was a tall man of African-American descent, with a smoothly shaven head and keen, intelligent eyes that were just now filled with doubt and unease.

"I think I'd rather it was _on_ the record," he said, his baritone voice quavering a little, betraying his discomfiture. "That way we're all less likely to say things we're going to regret."

"I don't think we should be holding this meeting at all," Thorgard declared levelly. He had a very diplomatic way of speaking: nothing ever seemed to faze him. "It's most inappropriate."

"Then why are you here?" Wesley Demeter asked stridently. He was a fiercely practical man, nearing sixty and apparently all too aware of the inexorable movement of the sands of time, because he never wasted a second. Most people found him abrasive, even intimidating. A select few, Prysock among them, admired his efficiency and personal integrity.

Thorgard turned towards his colleague, his expression mild and anything but confrontational. "Because the captain wasn't invited," he said; "and I felt that he should have someone here to take his part."

"An admirable sentiment," Smythe sneered, "but you might want to reconsider allying yourself with a sinking ship."

"None of us are denying that Captain Calavicci has a problem, are we?" Henry Kostky asked. The Ph.D. in Philosophy was uncommonly good at getting to the heart of the matter, one of the things that made him such a valuable staff member in a Project full of theoretical scientists.

"We all have problems," Thorgard pointed out. "That doesn't mean we want people to hold secret conclaves to discuss them behind our backs."

Smythe leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. "With all due respect, Doctor, people who show up at the scene of a crisis _drunk_ leave themselves open to whatever kind of criticism and ridicule the more self-controlled members of the organization deem to mete out," he growled.

"I would have thought you'd see that," Doctor Cartwright said. He was young and idealistic, rather puritanical but an excellent physician. "After all, you were the one trapped in the lab under life-threatening conditions while he—"

Thorgard shook his head, and when he spoke he sounded almost angry. "Every man—and woman," he added with a nod at Eleese, "—in this room is entitled to his—or her—opinion. The right to an opinion does not imply a right to twist the facts. Yesterday's incident was hardly life-threatening. Unnerving, I'll agree, but not actually dangerous. It certainly wasn't the captain's fault that the fume hood malfunctioned."

Cartwright flushed. "I didn't say it was," he mumbled.

"No, you didn't," Thorgard agreed, once again his usual pleasant self. "I just wanted to make sure that we were all very clear on that."

Phillip cleared his throat. "As I was saying," he interjected, "this meeting is off the record. I understand that yesterday's mishap has everyone a little on edge, and I wanted to give everyone a chance to air their grievances. We're going to be level-headed and sensible. This isn't an opportunity to bad-mouth the Project Administrator. It's just a chance for me to get a better feeling for your concerns and frustrations."

"I have a concern," Smythe said. "He's a danger to the Project."

"How so?" Prysock asked levelly. He was determined to maintain objectivity at all costs.

"How _so_? The man in charge of Starbright is a drunk! You can't see why that's dangerous?" the Marine demanded.

"It seems to me," Thorgard put in, "that we could refrain from petty name-calling and unjust labels."

"It seems to _me_ that we should call a spade a spade," Smythe rejoined. "I don't see how Starbright can be expected to function properly when the Project Administrator spends half his time drinking and the other half making passes at anything in a skirt!"

"Th-that's not true!" timid Doctor Gushman said, wilting a little as everyone looked at him. "Captain Calavicci d-doesn't do that."

"I agree," Thorgard said. "I've never had any difficulty with the captain's work. He's always very prompt in addressing concerns from my department. What about yours, Donna?"

The young woman looked up in surprise. "Yes, he's usually good about that," she said, then scowled as she realized she had been tricked into arguing for the other side.

"Maybe so," Demeter said, "but Calavicci isn't the only person in that office. What about it, Mr. Prysock? How much of that work are you and the captain's secretary turning out? How much harder do you have to try to compensate for his irresponsibility?"

Phillip looked at him levelly. "I'm not going to answer that question," he said. "Does anyone have a legitimate concern, or are we wasting our time here?"

"Doesn't it bother _anyone_ that he turned up drunk yesterday?" Cartwright asked. "Orson, you said—"

The Naval physician shook his head. "What I said to you as a colleague and fellow physician has nothing to do with the present problem," he growled. "I can't sit here and do this. There are channels for this kind of thing, and I just can't circumvent them on your say-so, Phil."

Prysock nodded. "All right, I understand that. Does anyone have anything else to say?"

"If they do, I suggest they say it!" Thorgard snapped, suddenly brusque. His usually kind and clement eyes were dark and stormy. "If you would all just get it out in the open and stop whispering behind your hands, maybe we could resolve something! Has it occurred to any of you to _talk_ to Al about this?" He surveyed the length of the table. "Has anyone even tried to bring it up? To let him know he's getting near this invisible line you've established? To warn him that maybe his behavior isn't acceptable? Or do you just whisper behind his back, spreading hearsay like a bunch of sixth-grade snobs?"

There was a long, hangdog silence. Thorgard stroked his beard.

"I thought not," he said, his voice calmer, but still deadly. "Well, Phillip, I think that that might be where we should start. I can't deny that he was drinking on the job yesterday, and I can't deny that that is unacceptable behavior, but neither can I condone this kind of back-stabbing manipulation. We need to set an example for the staff, and I think that needs to begin with the rumors."

"I-I agree," Doctor Gushman ventured. "We shou-ouldn't talk about him behind his back."

Thorgard smiled. "Thank you, Gooshie," he said approvingly. "It _is_ Gooshie, isn't it?"

The round-faced programmer nodded with a tiny, gratified smile.

"Well?" the aging chemist continued. "What do the rest of you have to say about it?"

"It's the first step, certainly," Bancroft conceded. "I'd like to see it resolved without tarnishing the captain's reputation."

Smythe snorted disdainfully. "A little late for that!" he muttered.

"Whatever your personal feelings—sir—" the commander said, catching himself before his conviction could mount towards insubordination, "—Captain Calavicci is a national hero and a decorated war veteran. I don't know if you spent time in Vietnam or not, but if you did I would expect you to have some perception of what he's survived, and how much he's accomplished since repatriation."

Smythe stiffened a little, and suddenly Phillip wondered if he _had_ spent time in Vietnam. Surely the commander knew, just from looking at the service ribbons that the Head of Security wore on his uniform, but Phillip wasn't that well versed in military paraphernalia. The tension over the table was certainly mounting.

"Fine," Donna Eleese said, her voice suddenly rigid with suppressed emotion too. She had been a peace protestor, or at least that was the word on the grapevine, and she couldn't abide discussion of the war. "Fine. Someone needs to tell Calavicci to pull his socks up? I'll do it. I'll give him a talking-to he won't soon forget."

"I don't think so, my dear," Thorgard said. "First of all, you've admitted that his behavior isn't impacting your department. Second, you don't want to put Mrs. Calavicci in the position of choosing between spousal loyalty and friendship, do you?"

Phillip braced for an outburst: no one called Eleese "my dear". Instead of going for Thorgard's throat, however, she acquiesced. "Well, someone has to do it," she said. "Doctor Cartwright?"

The physician looked distinctly uncomfortable. "I—I suppose…"

"Hah," Smythe said. "You? Forget it. I'm more than happy to remind him of his duty as an officer—"

Thorgard shook his head. "Al isn't a criminal, and he isn't a child. He's a good and capable man who made a mistake yesterday. He doesn't need to be bawled out. He needs someone to talk to him, someone to listen to him. I'll talk to him, and I suggest the rest of you keep your mouths shut and act like the professionals you are!"

Silence descended, persisting for a good three or four minutes before Demeter got to his feet.

"If you'll excuse me," he said, "I have work to do. I can't waste my entire day on Calavicci."

He left the room. Kostky followed, and then Eleese. With a small, exasperated sigh, Smythe made his exit. Gushman retreated with a murmured excuse, with Cartwright in his wake. That left Prysock, Thorgard and Bancroft. There was another pause.

Finally, the chemist spoke. "You admire Al, don't you, Orson?"

The physician sighed wearily. "I admire who he was," he said. "I hate what he's become."

There was something almost like sorrow in the older man's eyes as he spoke. "But Orson, he's still the same man."

Commander Bancroft shook his head. "No, sir, I'm not convinced he is," he said. Then he got to his feet. "Good day, gentlemen."

Phillip watched Thorgard as the chemist pensively pawed his beard. The Deputy Administrator did not want to be the one to leave, or the one to disrupt the quiet. Fortunately, Thorgard seemed cognizant of his discomfort.

"I'm afraid all of this nonsense is putting you in a difficult position," he said. "You want to do what's right for Starbright, and at the same time you're having the same problem Bancroft is."

"I am?" Phillip exhaled. There was no denying he was in a difficult position, but…

"There is so much you admire about Al, but despite that you can't condone his recent behavior." Thorgard got to his feet and patted Phillip's shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry, son," he promised. "Al Calavicci will come through in the end."

As the venerable scientist moved towards the door, Phillip wished with all his heart that he could believe that.


	25. Chapter TwentyFour

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Al buried his face in the freshly-laundered bed sheet, moaning with pleasure as Maxine kneaded out a painfully knotted muscle. It was three in the afternoon, and he should have been down in his office toiling away like the replaceable paper-pusher he was, but Max had come to drag him away at two forty-five. She had reminded him that he had yet again worked through his lunch break, and won him 'round to her point if view with the promise that she wouldn't make him eat. Now, she was straddling his thighs and massaging cocoa butter lotion into his stiff and aching back. Each new application followed the contour of a scar, but Max didn't comment. The closest she came was to periodically bend and nip at his ear.

Al was glad she just wanted to play. She seemed to prefer that to talking, and an uninquisitive lover was all that Al could ask of life. She probably had a thousand questions, no thanks to Les Davies, but she was sensible enough to realize that he didn't want to talk about it, and maybe even smart enough to realize that, really, she didn't want to know. She was so perfect.

Too perfect. What the hell had he ever done to deserve a wife as perfect as Max? The only way she could have possibly been better was if she were Beth instead. The unsettling thought came to Al that either his luck had changed, or Max wasn't as perfect as she seemed…

Her slender hand rippled over a broad, puckered band of scar tissue, and Al shivered. In response, Max leaned forward, lying down on top of him. The silk of her camisole was smooth and warm against his back, her weight soothing. Her fingertips massaged his neck and she rested her chin between his shoulder blades.

"You cold, Al?" she murmured, kissing his jaw.

He groaned softly. He could feel himself losing contact with reality. He was so tired, and the bed was so soft, and the rhythm of Maxine's breathing was lulling him nearer and nearer to the land of slumber. Only the knowledge that it had been forty minutes since his last nip from the hip flask—in the back pocket of the pants he had shed in the other room—kept him from giving in. The last thing he wanted was a nightmare in the middle of the afternoon, when he still had to muster himself and return to work.

Maxine had turned her head, laying it down upon his shoulder. She moved her hands, slipping them between the mattress and his collarbones in a modified embrace. A hot, fragrant column of air bathed his shoulder, neck and jaw. "I think we need a holiday," she said.

"Just had a holiday," Al mumbled.

"No, you haven't!" she argued.

"Have so. Married you, didn't I?" Al closed his eyes. They were itching and sore. He had picked up a bottle of eye drops in Wickenburg last Saturday, hoping to disguise the redness. Next time he would have to ask the pharmacist for help, because these were obviously not the ones for him: his eyes had been dry as the desert outside for days now.

"Seems like so long ago," Maxine said. There was a curious lilt to her voice, but Al could not assign it to wry humor or a frightened epiphany. One or the other, he thought numbly.

Numb. God, it felt good to be numb. No pain. No misery. Neither heat nor cold. Nothing but the vague, tingling feeling that your body was out there, somewhere. The sense that if you just exerted a little effort, you could maybe reach your mind and return to the real world. And the comforting knowledge that you didn't have to. Not yet.

Then he heard the sound of flesh on wood. Halfway between sleep and awake, the noise was misconstrued, and even Maxine's consoling presence couldn't keep his body from falling into old patterns. Al stiffened. They were coming.

Another knock. Max had rolled off of him the moment he had gone rigid, uttering a little gasp of surprise. She took a deep, unsteady breath. Al thought remotely that he had seen her like this before, acting like a frightened rabbit while someone was hammering on the door. Why? Why was Maxine scared of people knocking on the door?

She recovered quickly, stroking his hair and bending to kiss him. "I'll be right back," she promised in her most suggestive voice. Al, struggling against an influx of unwanted memories, nodded. He watched her, his vision a little blurred, as she snatched her dressing gown from the closet and wrapped herself in it, padding off on bare feet into the other room.

He could hear the voices in the next room, and he made himself sit up, rubbing his eyes.

"Mrs. Calavicci! Good afternoon. Is the captain in?"

"He… yeah… he's taking a late lunch today…"

Al crept towards the edge of the bed and leaned swiftly to reach behind the nightstand. He unscrewed the cap on the bottle of bourbon and let a good three ounces run down his throat.

"That's what Ms. Pharris told me. Do you think he could spare me a couple of minutes?"

"Oh… I… we were just… I was trying to help him relax…"

Al took another long draught, sealed the cap tightly, and replaced the liquor in its hiding place.

"Good. I'm glad he has someone to help him relax."

The voice was pleasant, almost amused. Al got to his feet and made his way towards the bedroom door, his brain clearing a little under the influence of the alcohol. He came around the corner. Doctor Thorgard stood in the doorway. Seeing the newcomer, the chemist smiled warmly. "Captain!" he said in greeting. Then an odd look came over his face: surprise and amusement quickly morphing into mild consternation. Al followed his eyes, and flushed deeply."I… I'll be back in a minute," he mumbled, fleeing back into the bedroom. He grabbed his smoking jacket and wrapped it around himself, hiding his boxers and the scars webbing his torso. He shivered. Had Thorgard seen the marks, or had he just been reacting to the nakedness and the obvious implication of what he had interrupted. Al shivered and moved toward the bureau. He rummaged deep in his sock drawer and took out a concealed bottle of vodka. Two quick shots gave him the courage he needed to return to the other room, where Maxine was mumbling some sort of awkward apology while Thorgard stood politely by.

"What did you need?" Al asked, forcing himself to speak.

Thorgard smiled. "I wanted to talk about yesterday."

Al's stomach wrenched. Yesterday. He had lost his temper on Smythe, and he'd been wondering if that would come back to haunt him. From the grim look in the chemist's eyes, the answer was yes.

He turned to his wife. "Max, isn't there some work you have to get done? Basketball rosters or something?"

"Not really," Maxine said brightly. Then she caught his expression. "Oh—I mean—" she faltered. Glancing down, she added softly, "I'll just put on some clothes."

She disappeared into the bedroom. Al stepped back to admit Thorgard. "Take your coat off, stay a while," he said, making a pitiful attempt at humor.

"Thank you," Thorgard said courteously, stepping through into the kitchenette. Al suffered a moment of embarrassed anxiety: he hadn't been near that area of the suite for days. Then he realized that it was perfectly neat and tidy, and remembered that Max wasn't a slob like Sharon.

Al closed the door, just in case someone happened by. Eh didn't know why Thorgard was here: he had expected Smythe to come and chew him out in person, or maybe Eleese. She had been shooting him some very disapproving glances yesterday.

Maxine came out of the bedroom, wearing a pink cotton sundress and sensible white tennis shoes. She had even taken the time to changer her earrings. She paused to peck Al on the cheek.

"Sorry to run like this," she said to Thorgard. "I'm sure Al will take care of you."

"I'm sure," the chemist agreed.

Max left and Al bolted the door behind her. It was an old habit. There was something very empowering about being able to lock _yourself_ in, voluntarily. Not to mention the obvious advantage of locking others out. There was a lull before Thorgard spoke again.

"I could wait until you dressed, too," he said mildly.

"Oh, yeah," Al grunted, scratching the back of his head. He retreated again and gathered up the garments strewn across the floor. He couldn't quite bring himself to don used clothing, so he dumped them in the cloth-lined Starbright-issue hamper and went to rummage in the closet. The silence was oppressive, and even though he dreaded the conversation ahead, it was less fearsome than the stillness.

"What can I do for you, Doc?" Al called, raising his voice so that it would carry into the other room.

"I just wanted to talk," Thorgard replied. "One friend to another."

Al swallowed tightly, suddenly even more uncomfortable than before. He didn't really think of Thorgard as a friend, and in his experience conversations that started with that line wound up morphing into interrogations: well-meaning idiots sounding out their old acquaintance for the telltale signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

"Really?" Al said, stepping into his pants and trying to keep his voice casual despite his discomfort. "What about?"

"You're under a lot of stress," Thorgard told him. Big news. "I thought you could use a sympathetic ear."

"Oh, yeah?" Al snapped. "Well, you thought wrong!"

Thorgard was a nice guy, and Al wanted to believe that he meant well, but sympathy was beyond the pale. It was too much akin to pity. He had to cling to what dignity he had left, the little that hadn't been stripped away over the long, brutal years of torture and misery, to say nothing of the joys of repatriation and everything that had followed. Dignity was precious. Priceless. And so scarce. He wasn't going to fritter it away for the illusion of a friend. That wasn't a sound investment.

Al started to button up a fresh shirt, hiding the scars and giving himself a little false confidence. He scrubbed his face with one hand. He drew in a deep, bracing breath and forced himself to leave the sanctuary of the bedroom.

Thorgard had moved towards the sofas, waiting for him. "Al, yesterday—"

"Yeah, I jumped down Ken's throat. I know." The words came out harshly. "So why isn't he here to slap the cuffs on me?"

"Why did you do it?" Thorgard asked.

"I was angry," replied Al, curtly.

"You were drunk."

Al stared. Thorgard's mild, amicable gaze didn't waver. He couldn't have said what Al had just heard. "I beg your pardon?" he croaked.

"You were drunk," Thorgard repeated, levelly. Then he added, with a hint of unease, "At eleven in the morning."

Throes of shame ripped through Al's abdomen. "I think that puts it very hard," he said numbly.

"I think it puts it very well." Thorgard gestured at the furniture. "Shall we sit and talk about it?"

AL obeyed. That was what it was: an act of obedience. He knew that he was cornered, and until he could see a way out of the present predicament he would have to play along. Thorgard was a seventy-something chemist with a well-groomed beard and gentle eyes, but for all Al could see by way of escape, he might as well have been a VC with a whip. The captain sat, perching on the very edge of the cushion with his back as straight as he could make it. He was posed for defiance or flight.

Thorgard sat down on the other sofa. "Al, I want to help," he said.

"I don't need help," Al countered leadenly.

"Are you going to try to deny what happened yesterday?" asked Thorgard. His voice was still level and mild, but his volume had dropped, imparting true gravity to his words.

"What's to deny?" Al asked. "I had a hangover. Max and I had a little fun the night before. At least I came in to work instead of begging off sick."

"You didn't have a hangover," Thorgard contradicted. "You were drunk."

"Probably still a little tipsy," Al said, a steely, stubborn note creeping into his voice. "Like I said, Max and I had a lot of fun."

"I saw Mrs. Calavicci at eight that morning," Thorgard said softly. "She was in the weight room. She looked the very picture of health."

"So she holds her liquor better than I do," Al said. "Thanks for rubbing it in."

The silence was unsettling. Al looked up at Thorgard, trying to assess the situation. He had expected to see anger or perhaps amusement in the scientist's eyes. Instead, he saw something worse. Thorgard was looking at him with regret and a profound, sorrowful disappointment, as if he had expected much more of a wretch who had just let him down in uncounted ways. Al felt a churning remorse in the pit of his stomach. He hung his head, cheeks burning with shame.

"Alright," he breathed, confessing so much more than he wanted to. "I had a couple of drinks yesterday morning." And then a couple more. And a couple more after that, too.

Thorgard nodded solemnly. "I know."

"It won't happen again." Al clasped his hands tightly, trying to keep them from shaking.

Thorgard reached out and placed one bony hand on Al's knee. Deep, hunted brown eyes looked up in shock. The aging scientist shook his head. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Al," he said softly. "Be honest with me. Be honest with yourself. Was yesterday really an isolated incident? Or was it part of a pattern?"

Al tried to pull away, but Thorgard wouldn't let him. With speed belying his age, he grabbed the younger man's wrists.

"Al!" Thorgard said sharply. Involuntarily, the Naval officer flinched. It was an instinctive reaction: harsh noises, angry voices. Danger. Impending anguish. Al hated himself for it. Thorgard didn't notice the wince, or he didn't care, because he wasn't backing down. "Al, I want you to tell me why you're doing this to yourself."

Obscenities drew perilously close to Al's lips, but he caught himself just in time. "Make like the trees and leave," he muttered.

Thorgard blinked slowly and drew a deep breath, but he did not release his hold. "Al," he said softly, "why are you drinking so much?"

Al tried to grin. "Whiskey tastes good," he said as sunnily as he could. His voice cracked and betrayed him. He wanted to hide his humiliation, to raise his hands to cover his face, but he couldn't even do that: Thorgard held fast.

"Al, is there something wrong between you and your wife?" the older man pressed, trying a closed-ended question.

"No!" Al snapped.

"Family troubles?"

The laugh was harsh and bitter. "What family?"

"I know your work is stressful—"

"You got that right!"

"—but somehow I don't think that's the problem."

Al stiffened. "Are you saying I can't do my job?"

"No, quite the opposite. Something is driving you to drink, but I don't think it's Starbright," Thorgard mused. "If it were, you would have been drinking yourself insensible after the crisis, not before. What ever it is that's doing this to you, Al, you have to deal with it before it drives you to destroy yourself!"

Finally, Al wrenched free of the chemist's grip and launched to his feet, pacing in agitation. "Maybe I'm just a rummy!" he choked out. "That's obviously what you think: come out and say it!"

Thorgard's expression was one of profound sadness. "You're not a rummy. You're struggling with a problem—obviously a substantial one—and you're doing it badly. All I want to do is help you find another way. There are other ways, Al. Better ways."

"Aw, what the hell do you know about it?" Al snapped.

"Nothing," Thorgard said. "I don't know anything about it, because you won't tell me."

"Why _should_ I tell you? Why should I tell you anything? How is it any of your damned business?" demanded Al.

Thorgard rose. "Al, everyone saw you yesterday," he said. "You were drunk, you were angry, and you were yelling at the colonel. I've just come from a conversation with half of the department heads, all of them concerned about your behavior. Thanks to your indiscretion, it's now the 'business' of the entire staff. If it doesn't stop, it's going to be the Committee's business! Someone had to talk to you, to let you know how you're coming across, and to try to talk some sense into you—"

Al cackled nastily. "And you drew the short straw," he jeered. "Come and talk sense into the rummy! Ooh, you need a doctorate for _that_ job!"

Thorgard sighed. "Al, I want to help you, but I can't do it if you refuse to tell me what—"

"I don't need help!" Al shouted. "I just need a little peace! Go away. Leave me alone. I've told you it won't happen again: isn't that enough?"

Thorgard tried once more to get through to him. "Al," he said softly, "I think we both know it's not as simple as that."

"Are you calling me a liar?" Al demanded.

"No," Thorgard breathed. "No, of course I'm not. I hope you're right. I hope it doesn't happen again, but if it does—"

"It won't!" Al reiterated.

"If it does," Thorgard said, "and you find you need help, I hope you know that you can always come to me."

He moved towards the door. Al's mouth had always worked quicker than his common sense, and today was no exception.

"Hey, Doc, why the hell do you care, anyway?" he demanded.

Thorgard paused with his hand on the doorknob. He didn't turn, keeping his back to Al as he spoke.

"I care because you deserve to have someone care about you."

He was gone before the cynical laugh could break through the sudden, constricting pain that closed on Al's throat and chest.

As soon as he could move again, Al hastened towards the bookshelf. He moved two volumes and took out a bottle of Jack Daniels. It was the good stuff: eighty-six proof and decadent as hell. He sealed his lips around the neck and took a long swallow. He closed his eyes. He had gone too far yesterday, and he knew it. He had to make sure that from now on stuff like this didn't happen.

He had to make sure that from now on, he didn't get caught.


	26. Chapter TwentyFive

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Maxine's long legs wobbled, buckling inward like the limbs of a colt who had not quite mastered the art of walking. Her knees trembled and her outstretched arms jerked as she tried to balance herself. She felt as if she was about to careen towards the floor in a painful, tailbone-bruising mass of chaos. The difference between today's Max and the Max of two months ago was that the current model refused to accept her fate. One skate-clad foot lifted itself off the ground in a loping half-step that almost cost her what little balance she had. Then her common sense and the eager, half-demented voice shouting instructions at her reminded Maxine that she had wheels on her feet. She pushed backwards a little, and almost glided for a few inches. Again, she quivered and came close to falling. Again, her long arms worked frantically to defy destiny. Another awkward step, push, and glide—well, roll a little, anyway. Then her fingertips brushed the pole, and suddenly she was hugging it, laughing triumphantly.

"I did it!" she cried.

"You did it," Al agreed, coming closer. "Knew you could."

Max wanted to hug him, but if she tried she was pretty sure she would lose her balance. She settled instead for a radiant smile as she glanced over her shoulder to view the distance she had covered. She had made it all the way to the second post—a third of the way across the gymnasium!—without falling once!

"You want to keep going?" Al asked.

"No, I think I'll quit while I'm ahead," she said.

"That's my philosophy," Al told her, offering her his hands. She shifted her weight towards him and after a few seconds of peril he was walking her towards the bleachers, one hand gripping her slender fingers and the other running over her hip.

Maxine leaned contentedly against him, and laughed a little. "You're so short!" she teased.

"You're wearing wheels," Al said sulkily, easing her onto the seat and plunking himself down next to her.

Max leaned forward to undo her laces, noting with amusement that Al was admiring the tops of her breasts where her shirt fell open. _Admiring_, as if her body were a work of art, not _leering_ as men had been doing ever since she hit puberty. She leaned towards him. "I really appreciate this," she said.

"Uh?" he breathed, curling his arm around her waist and kissing her ear.

"Helping me do this. I appreciate it." She removed her other skate and reached for her knee pad.

"Let me to that," Al said softly. He hadn't been much for romance lately, and Max was starting to miss that. She was only too happy to let him take over. His hands were gentle as he undid the Velcro straps, sensuously caressing her knee with his fingertips. She giggled a little, happily. Maybe he wanted to play!

Al kissed her, reaching across to the other kneecap. "You're gorgeous," he said. "So beautiful."

"You want to…" She let her voice tail suggestively off. Al smiled and curled his hand around the back of her head. His mouth found hers in a deep, impassioned kiss. Max sighed happily and climbed into his lap, one knee on either side of his hips. She reached for his curls. "We could… use… the girl's showers," she suggested. The locker room was nice and private, seldom used, and it was conveniently near at hand.

Al chuckled a little as he ran his hand over her back. He tasted the skin of her neck and pulled her nearer.

"It's perfect," Max murmured. "Let's go…"

Al sighed. "I can't," he said wearily.

Maxine frowned. "Why not?" she asked.

"I have to get back," Al said, lifting her a little so that she moved instinctively off of him and back onto the bench.

Max couldn't deny that she felt a little hurt, and the desolation crept into her voice. "Back? But it's seven at night!"

"I know," Al said, grunting a little as he got to his feet, "but I have work to do, and it isn't going to take care of itself."

"When will you be done?" Max asked.

"Never," Al said. Her brow wrinkled in confusion. "But what you meant to ask was when I was planning to come to bed, right?" He stroked her chin. "As soon as I can, honey. I promise."

He bent to kiss her hair and then started across the gym—away from the exit.

"Al, what are you doing?" Max demanded.

"Putting away the posts," Al answered. "Blessed is he who cleans up his own messes."

"Leave it," she instructed. "I'll do it."

"That's not what a real gentleman would do," Al warned.

"Oh, well, if I were a real lady, I'd mind!" Maxine quipped. "Go on: get to work. The sooner you go, the sooner you'll be back."

"That's true," he allowed. "All right. You can do the heavy lifting—but just this once!" Al trotted back and kissed her, patting her bottom affectionately. "Who wears the pants in this marriage, anyway?"

"If it was up to me, neither of us would be wearing pants right now," Max teased.

Al chuckled and bent to kiss the crown of her head. "I like the way you think," he said. "Maybe I could cut out a little earlier than I'd planned to."

"Please do," Max said, smiling a little. Al winked at her and sauntered away.

Left alone, she put away the poles and surveyed the empty gym with a small sigh. She had really hoped for a whole evening with Al. She didn't want to go back to their little suite, to sit all by herself and think. She thought too much, and her thoughts of late had been dark and disappointed.

Instead, she made her way up the main corridor to the Human Resources offices. Maybe she could distract herself with a little paperwork, or the requisition requests for the Christmas dance. At this time of the evening, there was almost no one in the office, except for the person manning the phone lines for the night. As soon as Max entered the darkened reception area, she saw that it was Daniel Penvenen tonight. He was sitting at his desk, writing in a black composition book. Maxine leaned against the open doorway of his cubicle.

"Good evening," she said softly.

He looked up, and she thought she saw the faintest flicker of paranoia in his eyes. Then he smiled suavely. "How are you, Mrs. Calavicci?"

"Please, call me Maxine," she said. "I'm fine. Just fine."

"So glad to hear it," Penvenen said. "What about your husband?"

"What about him?" Maxine had caught him looking at her legs, and she was suddenly wishing she hadn't left the leotards off. The satin running shorts seemed so inadequate right now.

"How is he?" Penvenen said.

"Oh. Al's fine."

There was an uncomfortable silence. At least, it was uncomfortable for Maxine. Penvenen merely went back to his writing. Watching him, not sure if it would be rude to just walk away, she wished she had just snuck past to her own desk—or better yet, not come up here at all. She didn't want to disturb him.

"There's a parcel for you," Penvenen said, eyes still on whatever he was writing. "Arrived with the evening mail. Odd that you would have it delivered here instead of to your suite."

Max looked at him warily, wondering if he had seen through her secret, and more importantly, whether he would tip Al off. The young man looked up and smiled pleasantly. "A birthday gift for the captain, I'm sure," he said.

"Oh, yes…" Maxine said, seizing the out. "Yeah, well, never too early to plan ahead."

Penvenen hummed softly and turned back to his work. Max had no qualms this time about fleeing. As she entered her own little cubicle and switched on her lamp, she felt her heart beating faster than it had any right to. A large, brown cardboard box sat on her blotter, with the Starbright address through the Department of Defense on the top, and the Board of Education crest to the left. She rummaged in her drawers for a scissor, and made quick work of the packing tape.

Inside, there was a curriculum guide and eight workbooks with plastic spiral binding. She removed each, laying them reverently on the desk, and then moved the box to the floor. She sat down, heart still fluttering, and picked up the first volume. It was heavy: at least three or four hundred pages. The title splashed across its blue cover proclaimed it to be Algebra for High School Equivalency. She flipped it open to one of the middle modules and felt her stomach twist with anxiety. She couldn't make sense of the words. It had been so long since she had been in school, and they hadn't been studying anything near this advanced in the first weeks of the tenth grade! Anxiously, she turned to the first chapter.

"_Real Numbers and Integers_," she whispered, reading aloud. She vaguely remembered that. Something about concentric circles… real numbers, irrational and rational numbers, integers, whole numbers, natural numbers… yes, she remembered _that_. Max took a deep, reassuring breath. It wouldn't be so bad. She could do it: she would just have to go slow.

She turned her attention on the other books. There was a green one, that was Geometry; and an orange one: Biology. Civics was pink, and Chemistry was red. Physics, thick and heavy with a canary yellow cover, made her nervous just looking at it, but after all, Starbright was full of physicists, and she would surely be able to trick a little help out of them if she needed it. History was much less daunting, with its cheerful purple cover and clear maps. Last of all was English, in black. It was accompanied by a list of the books she would need—something not required for any of the other courses. She would have to see if Al had any of them, which might not be the easiest thing to do on the sly.

Maxine stared at the volumes with pride and apprehension. She had actually done it: taken the first step towards making up the years she had thrown away. It was at once exciting and terrifying. Still, she was going to do it. These books had cost more than two hundred dollars, paid on Al's credit card because she didn't have one of her own, and she was absolutely determined to succeed. She was going to study, work her way through everything, and in the spring she would go into Phoenix to write the exams. Then, if she passed them, she would be given a certificate that said she had equivalency, that her education was just as thorough and complete as the education of those who had actually made it to graduation. Then she wouldn't have to fib about her school history any more, and she wouldn't have to skirt around the question when she applied for jobs in the future. Heck, she could even go to college if she wanted.

She cleaned out the bottom drawer of her desk, and hid the books in it. She didn't want Al to know what she was doing. He thought that she _had_ finished school. He didn't realize that she was a drop-out, and she didn't want him to know, because then he'd want to know what she had done after quitting the tenth grade and leaving home. She really didn't want to tell him about that, any more than she wanted to tell him about her father. So, she would keep the books here, and come to her office to study. She only worked twenty hours a week, and the rest of the time this little room stood empty. It was the perfect place to work.

It was perfect, and she was going to start now. She found a pencil and took out the Algebra book. With a deep, determined inhalation, she turned back to the first chapter.

_There are two kinds of numbers: real numbers and imaginary numbers Imaginary numbers are dealt with in Calculus for High School Equivalency and will not be discussed in this course. The set of real numbers includes all of the numbers normally used in algebra: rational numbers and irrational numbers. Rational numbers have a fixed value that can be expressed as a finite decimal. Rational numbers include 3, 45 367, 2.5, 765.1243 and fractions like 1/10. Irrational numbers, like _pi_, do not have a value that can be expressed as a finite decimal…_

Maxine stopped, swallowing tensely. The catalogue had contained a warning that these workbooks were best for students who were actually taking classes. She had figured that she was smart enough to make sense anything, but now she wasn't so sure. She felt a tear of frustration prickling in her eye already, and she fought it. She wasn't going to cry. She was going to do this.

She went to her almost-empty bookshelf and brought the dictionary to the desk. She turned back to the workbook, and started again, more slowly.

_Rational numbers have a fixed value that can be expressed as a finite decimal…_


	27. Chapter TwentySix

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Every sound struck terror into his heart. The creak of leather hinges meant Charlie was coming. The crunch of dead leaves—ditto. Wind in the trees heralded a storm. The chatter of Viet voices… screams and moans from the other prisoners… the taunting laughter of the villagers and the violent, vicious barking of Quon's dogs. The battery of gunfire, the wail of an A-4, high above. The soul-rending concussion of American bombs as they rained down, ignorant of those forgotten wretches cowering in the jungle, praying for a rescue that would never come and suffering the immediate consequences of the air raids. Every single noise meant pain.

In silence alone was there some semblance of safety. In the depths of the night, when they left you alone on the floor of the hootch—even when you were lying in your own blood and vomit, bound into impossible positions or weighted down with chains—there was silence. The petty harassment abated for a brief space. There was a respite from the cruelty. If you lay still long enough, even the blood pounding in your deeply-bruised ears fell silent and, for a fleeting, blessed interval, there was peace.

But silence could betray you. Even silence would betray you.

The Bitch moved as noiselessly as jungle fog. Her broad brown feet stirred no leaves, nor broke any twig as she moved through the compound. Her long, braided lash swung from her shoulder, as silent as her rope of black hair. Somehow the hinges never squeaked as _she_ slid the bamboo rod from its rattan loops and opened the door to the hootch. The Bitch could come in silence when she wished to, as if she knew how you revered the lull of the moonless nights. As if she were aware of the despair she brought when she stripped away the last refuge you had left: the refuge of silence.

It was the cry of the fish owl that woke Al tonight. He was bruised, bloodied and battered, half-dead after four days of torture—"punishment", as Quon said, for his "bad attitude". Locked up in the Pincushion Villa. This was just about the bottom of the accommodations barrel in 'Nam. If the Hanoi Hilton was a five-star resort and the hootches near Quon's bunker were a franchise of Motel Sixes, this hut was a Salvation Army barracks: last stop of the desperate and worthless. It was one step up from the tiger cage, and two above the latrine pit.

The hootch was down in the bluff, isolated from the village and so near the riverbed that in the rainy season you could reach groundwater by scraping six inches down into the dirt of the floor. All year 'round it was damp, muggy as a steam room in summer, and clammy and frigid in Vietnam's mediocre winter. The floor, such as it was, was always moist and spongy, and no matter how Al positioned his emaciated body the dampness oozed through his black rags. The tiny room reeked of mildew and fungus, under the other familiar stenches of an unwashed and long neglected body too far gone with pain to control itself. The air was close and heavy, and the effort of breathing was harder than it should have been, even taking into account three—maybe four?—freshly broken ribs.

The eagle-like screams of the fish owl brought Al back to this grim reality in a sudden flood of unimaginable agony. He screwed his swollen eyes tightly closed and ground his teeth together until the accrued plaque of almost six years squeaked in protest. This didn't help the pain, but at least it gave his mind the time it needed to focus. He was alone, he told himself, alone in the Pincushion Villa with the cloud of tireless torturers that gave the hovel its name. One moved in fro the kill right behind his right ear, feasting on blood he could not afford to lose. He flinched instinctively and a tiny whimper of misery escaped his cracked and bloated lips. Even when he was alone he had no respite from torment.

Al tried to ignore the mosquitoes feeding on his flesh. Hot tears of frustration prickled in his eyes and despair gnawed mercilessly at his soul. He was so close to giving up hope of ever escaping this jungle hell. There was too much pain, too much fear. Hunger. Boredom. Loneliness. After all these years—how many years?—it was too much for anyone to bear. He wanted so badly to surrender, to stop fighting, to give up the way he had seen so many people give up, but he couldn't. No matter how miserable, empty and hopeless this life was, he had to hold on… because of her. Somewhere beyond this small world of anguish, filth and terror, Beth was waiting for him, and he couldn't die, no matter how desperately he wanted to.

He had to cling to life because it was bigger than the present wretchedness. There was another world out there: sunsets over the Marina, chicken quesadillas, calla lilies, long walks by the sea, dancing to the dulcet strains of Ray Charles in the intimacy of your own living room. There was a world of classy cars, and neatly trimmed lawns, and colorful clothing that were never worn for more than eighteen hours between washings. A world of abundant food—fruits and vegetables, fresh-baked bread, even savory, nourishing meat. A world of clean water and rich, golden whiskey, ice cubes and sparkling glasses. It was a world with beds, blankets, carpeted floors and ceilings that kept out the rain. It was a world where people ate at tables, with white ceramic dishes and smooth, stainless-steel utensils. They bathed in hot water with soap, real soap that didn't smell of goose fat and rasp away a whole layer of skin when they used it. In that world, there was no pain. No fear. No death. And even though it all seemed like the wild fantasies of a madman, lying as he was upon the floor of a VC hootch, nothing more than a sack of bruised, bloody and filthy skin wrapped over contused and broken bones, Al knew that that world existed somewhere… and Beth was a part of it.

Beth. Someday, he would see Beth again, and they would live in that dream world where everything was clean and bright and beautiful. Maybe they could have kids. Certainly they would have each other. That was why Al had to hold on. That was why he had to endure everything Charlie threw at him, instead of selling his soul to the Commies or giving up and embracing the oblivion of death that hovered just on the edge of reason. He had to stay strong, to live through one more minute. Just one more day. Another season, another year—however long it took, because some day the war would end. Some day, even this war _had_ to end, and Uncle Sam would come to take him home, and he would see Beth again…

Footsteps in the night.

Al felt his resolve ebb away, replaced by sheer terror. They were coming. They'd be in here in a minute. Why—_why_ couldn't they leave him alone? Just for one night. One night without the shouting, the spitting, insults, abuse. One night of peace…

He had to get up! He had to stand up! If he wasn't on his feet, bowing respectfully when they entered, it would be an excuse to hurt him. It wasn't that they needed an excuse to hurt him, but what if they took it as a sign of resistance? What if they put him back in the tiger cage? He couldn't bear that. He couldn't stand it. Not again. Not again.

Al struggled against the vertigo and the pain, trying to force himself onto his feet. His legs wouldn't obey him. His chest was crippled with agony and he fell back, trying desperately not to succumb to the despair. He couldn't stand. All he could to was make himself as small as possible, protect what he could and hope that they weren't in the mood for a game of beat-the-Air-Pirate. He pressed himself into a corner of the hut, curling into a ball and struggling to shield his aching head with his wounded arms.

The door opened. Vietnamese voices clucked and chattered, his brain unable to translate the words through the haze of fear and pain. Laughter. Sandaled feet struck, biting into him again and again. Al tried to keep quiet, but the kicking continued. He could feel his lungs filling with blood and phlegm, and his heart pounded in terror and desolation.

Then a hand reached out and gripped his shoulder. Panic ignited every nerve, and Al scrambled away, falling to the ground and crawling, trying to escape. The guard followed him, yelling his name and trying to take hold of his hair. Al cursed in Vietnamese, but he had backed himself into a corner, and he couldn't get away. Hadn't he been in a corner when he had started? He couldn't remember. He had to get away!

As he struggled against the hands trying to restrain him, he shouted aloud, unable to keep from voicing his one frantic wish. "Leave me alone!" he begged. "God, why can't you leave me alone?"

"Al!" the guard shouted, trying to close long, nimble fingers on his wrists and immobilize his flailing arms. "Al, calm down! Wake up!"

Instinct and terror know no reason. Al tried to curl into a ball, ignoring the pain in his ribs, back and limbs. "Go away!" he screamed. He was lost in the panic, unable to slow his heart or deepen the high, gasping breaths that plucked at the tops of his lungs. Wide, frightened eyes stared blankly into the darkness, unable to pick out the source of the threat. "No!" he cried, hating himself for the show of cowardice, but unable to fight the instinctual desire to stop the pain, to prevent more suffering, whatever the cost to his pride. "No! Go away! God, please go away!"

"Al!" the VC shouted again. The prisoner's terror mounted as he realized it was one of the women. "Al! Wake up!"

The hands grabbed him again, and he wrenched away, scrambling towards the nearest perceivable shelter. A hole in the ground. A little cave where maybe—just maybe—Charlie wouldn't be able to touch him. Wouldn't be able to find him. Al flattened himself against the ground and thrashed, slithering into the little tunnel. His chest constricted and cold perspiration drenched his unclothed body. The space was too small, his lungs couldn't draw breath, but at least the "V" weren't clawing at him anymore.

Not clawing… but still talking! "Al, please! Wake up! What's wrong? Al!"

He closed his eyes against a sudden bright light, and when he opened them, Maxine was on her hands and knees, bending to look under the bed. Her blue eyes were wide as they met his, and she was crying. "Al?" she whispered.

He drew in a deep, ragged breath, and raised a hand to his face. He looked around in bewilderment, realizing with a start that he was huddled underneath the bed.

"Max?" he croaked. His voice was harsh, rasping more than usual. "Maxie, what's the matter?"

She let out a frightened sob, and her face vanished as she bolted to her feet and backed away from the bed.

Al remained stationary for a minute, trying to calm himself. His heart was pounding in his ribcage, and he could feel phantom pain thrumming through his limbs and across his scarred torso. '_Fish owl_,' he thought, and his stomach shriveled into a knot of dread. Had he had another nightmare? He dimly remembered…

He didn't want to remember, he told himself viciously. Bad enough that he was going to have to placate Maxine. Drawing in a deep, uneven breath, Al crept out from under the bed, on the side opposite his wife.

She was standing with her back to the wall, her left hand pressed against it and her right clutching her abdomen. Her eyes were wide and frightened. "Al?" she chirped breathlessly.

"Max?" he rasped in response.

"A-are you okay?" she whispered.

Al tried to shrug casually. "Fine," he said.

She was shivering, still flattened against the wall. "You were screaming," she managed to say.

Al flushed with shame. "Bad dream," he tried. A ghost of a memory infiltrated his mind and a chill of horror crept up his spine.

Maxine's quaking worsened, and her left hand traveled upwards to her mouth as she tried to swallow a hiccoughing sob. She shook her head spastically. "No," she said. "No. You were… you were remembering things. Things that happened to you."

"Don't be stupid," Al said, more forcefully than he had meant to. Max flinched, but Al was so wrapped up in his fervent denial that he didn't really notice. "It was just a bad dream," he avowed. "Something I ate at supper must've upset my stomach."

"You didn't eat supper!" Maxine sobbed.

Al tried to gesture confidently, and failed miserably. "There, you see?" he said. "I had a nightmare 'cause I went to bed on an empty stomach." He glanced at the clock. It was four in the morning. Calavicci had really done it this time.

And Max wasn't letting him get away with it this time. She wagged her head from side to side again. "Al, please," she exhaled, begging him to be truthful, stable, sane—everything he wasn't.

"Leave me alone," said Al in numb defeat. "It's just a stupid dream 'cause I went to bed hungry."

Weak, shaking legs carried him to the bathroom before Max could intervene. Al locked the door and sank to the ground with his back against it, trembling violently. In the cupboard under the sink, hidden behind extra rolls of toilet paper, assorted cleaning supplies and the thick copper drainpipe, was a bottle of vodka. He clutched it to his chest, hands quivering so violently that he could scarcely unscrew the cap. He managed it in the end, though, and the soothing fluid burned a path down his throat and into his chest. His stomach, still churning with the stress of the night terror, roiled and rebelled against its savior, almost ejecting the liquor. Al clamped his lips closed and swallowed the acid that flooded the back of his throat. There was a moment of anxiety when he thought he would fail and give into the urge to vomit, but sheer obstinacy won out. His whole body slowly unclenched as the alcohol took effect.

Another couple of swallows leeched the tremors from his limbs and settled his palpitating heart. He recapped the vodka and tucked it back into its hiding place. Then he got to his feet and leaned over the sink, laving his face with cold water and driving back the last of the horror. His bathrobe was hanging on the back of the door, and he swathed himself in it, covering his cold, scarred body and restoring some shred of confidence to his withered soul.

Hoping that Max had fallen asleep again, Al drew a deep breath and left the bathroom.

The bedroom light was off, and Maxine was in the kitchenette, her back to him as she worked over the stove. Al hesitated, expecting a confrontation. She didn't seem to notice his presence, and it took him a minute to work up the courage to speak.

"Max?" he said at last. "What are you doing?"

"Making an omelet," she said, tilting the pan with care. "You're having nightmares because you didn't eat supper: you said so."

"Thanks," Al whispered; "but I'm not hungry."

"You said you were," Maxine ventured, turning to look at him with timid, vulnerable blue eyes.

Al felt a wrench of guilt, followed by the comforting realization that Max didn't want to believe her own allegation that he had been "remembering things". She wanted to be a problem that had sprung from an empty stomach because then it could be solved. It was a pleasant lie, and quite honestly Al wanted to buy into it, too.

"That's right," he murmured. "I did say that, didn't I?"

Maxine nodded nervously. "Come sit down?" she ventured.

Al moved to the table, and Max turned back to her cooking, sprinkling cheese and chopped peppers and mushrooms onto the omelet and folding it a little clumsily. She transferred it to a plate and came to the table, blushing ashamedly.

"It's not very pretty," she apologized.

"It smells wonderful," Al told her. And it did. He almost never felt hungry these days. Food held little appeal, and was often even nauseating, but now, ridiculously, at four in the morning, he wanted to eat.

Maxine watched anxiously as he took a forkful of eggs and vegetables. Al managed a wan smile. "Delicious," he promised. Max smiled and exhaled happily, sitting back to watch him eat. It didn't take Al long to become uncomfortable with that arrangement. He chuckled hoarsely. "Aren't you hungry, too?" he asked, waving his fork at her. "Or did you drug it?"

Max laughed a little. "I had supper," she said, but she got herself a set of utensils from the door. As she moved to resume her seat Al caught her wrist and eased her into his lap. She leaned her head against his and they remained like that while they ate. Al couldn't manage more than a third of the omelet, and Max didn't seem very hungry, either. When they were finished she packed away the leftovers. Al moved to start the dishes, but she shook her head.

"I'll do them in the morning," Maxine promised, leading him back towards the bedroom. She switched out the light, and the room was plunged into darkness.

Al stiffened instinctively, his pulse quickening. He wasn't ready to face the darkness yet! The night terror still clung indistinctly to the edges of his consciousness, and his courage was undermined.

"It's okay," Max said softly, reaching out and caressing his face. "It was just a dream."

"Of course it was," Al said tensely, trying to convince himself as much as Maxine. "Just a stupid dream."

"I know," she whispered, leading him towards the bed. They slid out of their robes and crawled into bed. Maxine drew the covers up and cuddled close to her husband. Al felt himself relaxing a little as she petted his hair and eased him against the pillows. "Just a stupid dream," Max soothed. It was almost as if she knew what it was like to wake up trapped in the past, unable to escape, but that, of course, was ridiculous.

Still, it was nice to be held like this. Nice to have warm, gentle arms around him. AL shifted and kissed her softly, thankfully. She sighed with pleasure and pressed her pelvis against his. He kissed her again, and suddenly the darkness was no longer threatening. It was a cover for passion now, an ally in the quest for pleasure and forgetfulness.

He found both, for a little while.


	28. Chapter TwentySeven

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Al executed his morning routine as quickly as he could. Out of bed and straight into the shower. The daily struggle to tame his hair. Teeth, a shave with the electric razor, a nip from the bottle under the sink. Two drops of Visine in each eye to disguise the redness. He smiled at himself as he straightened his brightly-colored tie. His mouth obeyed, but his eyes did not. He knew he looked like he had it together: a man with all of his ducks in a row, not a worry in the world… but it wasn't the truth. The truth was that he was a man with a rapidly failing grip on reality. A man who had been up half the night trying to avoid the nightmares. A man who couldn't keep his hands steady, his heartbeat even, or his mind focused without a little help from a bottle.

_'You're pathetic, Calavicci,'_ the cruel, nagging voice taunted.

The smile vanished from the mask in the mirror. Al ran a shaking hand over his head, accidentally rousing several curls from their careful conformation. He sighed softly and went for the vodka again. It was getting low. He'd have to find an excuse to go into town and stock up. Easier said than done, now that Max insisted on accompanying him on his weekly pilgrimages to visit Stevie. Funny: Al really had hoped she would learn to like the little guy as much as he did. Now it was turning out to be a nuisance.

Al sighed wearily, and tried the false smile again. It was good enough to fool anyone, he decided. He could make it through another day. Another day. Another season. Another year.

Whatever it took.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

Maxine paced the apartment. She had spent most of the evening in her office, working on Civics. At ten o'clock she had left, afraid that Al would return to the suite before she did and wonder what was going on. It was now almost midnight, and there was still no sign of him. He had been putting in even longer hours than usual the last few days—ever since he had awakened in a panic and tried to hide under the bed. Max really wanted to believe that he had had that nightmare simply because he was hungry, but she couldn't quite swallow the lie. He had been lost in a memory, a time when someone had hurt him—frightened him so badly that now, maybe decades later, he still couldn't cope with it.

She wished she didn't know what that felt like. She wondered what had happened to Al, but she knew better than to ask. Instead, she fretted about it, agonizing over it whenever she had too much time to think. Her mind kept going back to Congressman Davies, and his allegations of torture. She didn't want to believe that, either, but she was starting to wonder…

A more pressing issue, and one that she really did try to focus on, was her high school equivalency studies. She was finding it much more difficult than she had expected to. Civics was easy, and so was Biology. She loved History—always had. The complicated concepts of Math, Chemistry and Physics, however, had her so overwrought with frustration that already she was contemplating accepting defeat. Her lofty idea of getting help seemed much more difficult now that she actually needed it. How on earth was she supposed to walk up to Doctor Eleese, a woman with a diploma, a Bachelor's of Science, a Masters and two doctorates, and confess that she was having trouble with the contents of a book entitled Physics for High School Equivalency? It would be like telling Rona Rocket, the best jammer in the history of the roller derby, that you didn't know how to roller-skate! Max couldn't quite swallow her pride and do that.

If she didn't, though, she'd fail the exams and she'd never get a diploma. There had to be some way to get help without having to make the humiliating admission of why she wanted it.

The phone rang, and Max hurried to answer it. Al, probably. Maybe to apologize and tell her not to wait up. Maybe to ask her to come down and visit him. She caught up the receiver.

"Hello?"

Nothing but the intra-Project dial tone. Again, the phone rang, and Max realized that it was the outside line in the other corner of the room—the telephone that Al had told her she should never, ever touch. Of course, he had said that in the context of making calls only. He had never told her what she should do if it chance to ring.

Instinct was stronger than logic, and she moved to answer it.

"Hello?" she tried again.

"Hello?" It was a woman's voice, tense and wary. "Who is this?"

"Maxine," she replied, then realized that this probably didn't mean anything to the caller. Why was a strange woman phoning Al at midnight? "Maxine Calavicci," she said pointedly.

"Calavicci?" the woman said. For a single, horrible moment, Max thought that Al was having an affair, and that this was his mistress calling. This theory was dispelled when, instead of hanging up, the person on the other end of the line said, "I'm Sharon. Your predecessor. Is Al in, please?"

Max almost laughed. Her predecessor. Al's ex-wife, the forty-something who had taken him for all she could in the divorce, and then had the nerve to sue for custody of Al's dog—and win. "Uh, no, no, he's not," she managed. "He's not in right now."

"Where is he, then?" Sharon asked. There was a strange hint of stress in her voice, as if she were afraid of something. She probably hadn't expected anyone but Al to answer, Max thought unkindly as she tried to extrapolate an image of the woman from her voice. Short, she decided. A little dumpy. Probably dyed her hair. Al never talked much about her, but Max had met him in Jersey in the middle of the war over the dog, and she knew that Sharon had broken his heart. He loved Chester, the little Yorkshire terrier who was now living in Rhode Island with his ex-nephew, and Sharon had taken him away. For that, alone, Maxine was ready to resent this woman.

"I don't think that's any of your business," she said coolly. Celestina didn't like Sharon, either. She had said as much one Saturday when Al and Stevie had gone walking in the bluffs near the trailer park.

A bitter laugh sounded on the other end of the phone. "Relax, honey. I don't want him back," Sharon said. "Tell me where I can get ahold of him. Assuming you know."

Maxine stiffened. "What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded.

"He doesn't go off without telling you where he's going?" Sharon asked meanly. "Did it to me all the time. He'd disappear for days, and come up with some lie about a breakthrough at the Project, or shoulder surgery…"

"Al wouldn't do that!" Max protested indignantly. "He wouldn't lie."

Sharon chuckled ruefully. "You've never caught him in a lie? Fibbing about what he ate, or how much he drank—"

"Al doesn't drink anymore," Maxine announced proudly. "He decided it wasn't good for his health."

"Oh, he did, did he?" Sharon asked, and Max though she could hear a little hint of sarcasm in the other woman's voice. "That's quite the makeover you've pulled. How long have you been together?"

"Almost five months," Max told her. "And we dated for a long time before."

"Can't have been that long, unless he was cheating on me with you," Sharon observed.

"Al never cheated on you!" Maxine said defensively. Because if Al hadn't cheated on Sharon, he certainly wouldn't cheat on her. "You're the one who ran off with a bricklayer!"

Another laugh. "I see he's told you all about me," said Sharon, and again there was a tint of cruelty in her words and Max felt her stomach wrench. "How is he?"

"Fine!" Maxine snapped. "Fine! We're very happy!"

"Are you?" Sharon whispered. "Are you really?"

"Of course!" Common sense told Maxine that she should hang up the phone and end this conversation right now, but she felt compelled to listen to whatever this other woman had to say.

"How're the nightmares?"

Max almost dropped the phone. "You… you know about those?"

Sharon laughed again, hollowly. "You think it's easy to sleep through thrashing and screaming?" she asked.

But then it wasn't something new. It wasn't a recent thing, for Al to have these dreams. That meant, Maxine realized abruptly, that maybe it wasn't her fault that the memories of whatever had damaged him so badly were coming back!

Her silence stretched out, and finally Sharon went on. "Does he still get up for a drink afterwards?" she asked. "Oh, that's right. He doesn't drink anymore."

"He doesn't!" Max cried. "Just a little wine sometimes when he makes pasta."

There was a pause on the other end. "How old are you?" Sharon asked.

"Twenty-two," Max said proudly, hoping spitefully that that made the other woman feel like the dried-up old witch that she was. Calling here, in the middle of the night, to call Al a liar, insinuate that he was sleeping around, make allegations about his drinking, and talk about the nightmares that he couldn't stand to deal with.

Instead, she heard a rueful chuckle. "Right," Sharon said. "When you're twenty-two you think you can fix the world. You don't want to believe that there are things so seriously screwed up that they can't be mended. Give him a kiss and a little hot sex and it all goes away. Right. Believe me, men like Al don't stop drinking overnight."

"Shut up!" Max said between clenched teeth. "Just shut up. I'm not the one who cheated on him. I'm not the one who divorced him. And I'm certainly not the one who took his dog away."

"You will," Sharon promised. She seemed to be taking some kind of perverse glee in the words. "Not take the dog, 'cause I doubt he bought another one. But you're going to cheat and you're going to divorce him. You'll see."

"No!" Max shouted. "No, I won't!"

"Sure," Sharon said. "I'll bet you love it when he spends half an hour in a cold shower. Or when he swears in his sleep. Scars aren't so sexy when he won't let you touch them."

"Stop it!" Max shrieked. "I love him!"

There was silence. She thought, maybe, that Sharon was satisfied and had hung up. She drew deep, bracing breaths, trying not to give into the emotions warring within her, and fighting not to believe the lies.

Then a low, defeated voice whispered another question in her ear. "Does he love you?"

Max slammed the receiver down. She stared at it, shuddering on its cradle. Then she ran into the bedroom and began to cry, sobbing so violently that her convulsions shook the mattress.

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Al pinched the bridge of his nose and took another snort of whiskey, trying fruitlessly to focus on the typewriter. Had to get a computer in here. Every department at the Project had computers, except Administration. Prysock loved his Smith-Corona, and Eulie was a whiz. Admiral MacArthur, Al's predecessor, had never been one for the bells and whistles of technology. But there was definitely something to be said about not having to type the same page six times just because you were overtired and kept hitting the wrong keys.

He glanced at the clock. Almost twelve-thirty. Maybe he should give it up for the night and go home. Except for the weekly inspection of the particle physics labs he hadn't left this room all day. The smile he had so carefully put on had carried him through his occasional brushes with his secretary, but there was almost no one else who had even seen him today. Make that yesterday, he corrected.

He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and sighed. Yeah, he was dog tired. Time to go home. He didn't know if he'd be up to fun and games with Max, but at least they could curl around each other and he could feel the soothing presence of another body, maybe find a little peace. A little forgetfulness.

That was what the last fifteen years had been all about. Forgetfulness. Forgetting what Charlie had done to you yesterday, and what you knew he was going to do tomorrow. Forgetting how you'd thought the war would end in six months, tops, when you'd been in this damned jungle now for four years and counting. Forgetting Beth because you knew she was gone. Forgetting everything about your second wife because… because it was just easier that way. Forgetting the previous night's terrors, forgetting why you were in bed with some woman you hardly knew. Forgetting about the time you'd come home early and found Ruthie in the bedroom with Phenobarbital and a glass of your whiskey. Forgetting how much you loved Chester, forgetting the moment you'd opened the bedroom door to find Sharon shacked up with Juan Penja, forgetting how much stress you were under, the pressure the Committee was putting on you, the chance that Starbright might fold… forgetting… forgetting… forgetting…

An eternal quest for forgetfulness that somehow never succeeded. He couldn't forget anything.

_'Except the Hungarian!'_ Al thought with a tiny, drunken titter. At least he'd managed to forget her. He sighed. What had she done to deserve to be forgotten, anyway? Probably nothing. He didn't know. He couldn't remember. 

He took another mouthful of liquor. Yeah, time to go to bed. Maxine. Maxine, Maxine, Maxine. He was determined not to forget about her.

The telephone rang. Al stared at it in horror. The outside line. Probably Les Davies, seized by a midnight need to reminisce. He toyed with the idea of letting it ring itself into oblivion, but he knew he shouldn't do that. If it was Les, and he didn't answer, the Congressman would try the suite, and he sure as hell didn't want that man talking to Max again.

"Calavicci," he said, then cleared his throat as he heard how badly his voice was slurring. "Calavicci."

"Al?"

The voice was timid, female… and because it was familiar he could tell that he wasn't the only one who had been at the sauce tonight. He straightened in his chair.

"Sharon?" he said gently.

A broken sob answered him as some sort of dam broke. His brow furled as concern suddenly coursed through him. Why was his ex-wife calling him at one in the morning? And crying.

"Sharon, what's wrong?"


	29. Chapter TwentyEight

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Sooner rather than later.

Phillip Prysock waited impatiently, tapping his foot as he waited for the elevator to stop. He should have known the other shoe was going to fall, and that it was going to fall soon. Calavicci's track record should have clued him in. Three wives in as many years. Two divorces, one so bad that he'd left Jersey for Arizona just to get away, and the other sufficiently nasty to tie him up in court for eight months. It should have seemed inevitable that he would fight with Maxine, and after the incident with Smythe, Prysock would have been a fool to be surprised that he would get smashed afterwards.

The lift halted. The second he could force his body between the two halves of the door, Phillip was out and running towards the Administration offices. One thing was certain. In the private sector you didn't have to worry about Naval vets with drinking problems.

Eulalie was standing by her desk, hands clasped over her mouth and eyes wide with fright. "I didn't know what to do," she whispered breathlessly. "I didn't know who to call."

Prysock rubbed her arm briefly as he bolted for the Project Administrator's office. He opened the door cautiously, afraid of what he would see.

It was bad, but not half as bad as he had feared from the frantic nature of Eulalie's telephone call. Captain Calavicci was slumped over his desk, arms akimbo, a thin stream of saliva soaking his blotter. His necktie was in a crumpled heap next to the telephones, and his sleeves were pushed up to his elbows. The faint white marks and twin bracelets of pale scar tissue were uncommonly visible on the denuded forearms, but Phillip spared them only a brief glance. He focused instead on the empty bottle of whiskey that lay on its side near the captain's head. The room reeked of booze.

Phillip was momentarily stricken with horrified paralysis. Then a loud, inebriated snore rent the air, and the Deputy Administrator shut the office door with a bang.

The result was instantaneous and unexpected. Calavicci awoke with a gasp of alarm. His eyes flitted across the room once, wide and wary, and then he threw himself out of his chair, vanishing beneath the desk. It took Phillip another shocked second to process this. He walked purposefully around the bulky piece of furniture, frantically reminding himself that he was a professional and groping through the mental detritus of every conflict resolution course he had ever taken. Unfortunately, though he had a wealth of knowledge when it came to resolving squabbles with subordinates, he had no idea how to deal with a superior whose behavior was growing more and more unacceptable.

The captain was cowering under his desk, pressed against the side of the bank of drawers, his head curled beneath his arms. Philip could swear he was shaking.

"Captain?" Prysock ventured.

Calavicci uncurled a little, scrubbing at his eyes and grunting softly. "Phil?" he mumbled. "What the hell…"

"Good morning," Phillip said, offering the captain his hand. The older man stared at it, almost warily.

Prysock jumped and Calavicci shrank backwards into his shelter as the door opened again. Phillip frowned questioningly at the impeccably groomed, expensively dressed intruder.

"Dan Penvenen, Human Resources," the newcomer said. "I was looking for Captain Calavicci."

"I'm Deputy Administrator and I can take care of any concerns you have," said Prysock, doing his best to act as if his very hung-over boss was not huddled less than a yard from his toe. "I'm busy right at the moment, though. Leave your extension number with Ms. Pharris, and I'll call as soon as I can."

"I understand Captain Calavicci was in here," Penvenen said. His eyes came to rest upon the empty liquor bottle, and for a moment his face tightened into a look of fastidious disgust. Prysock's abdomen tightened instinctively in dislike, relaxing more sanely as Penvenen quickly and discretely schooled his features.

"Ms. Pharris called to let me know," the HR man said. "She wasn't sure what to do. I told her you were in the best position to take care of this."

"You… I mean…" Prysock shook his head helplessly.

Captain Calavicci got stiffly and painfully to his feet, stumbling a little as he navigated around the chair. He squinted at Penvenen. "Dan?"

"Captain," Penvenen said.

Calavicci raised a hand to his forehead as if trying to push back the headache he was undoubtedly sporting. There was a long, awkward pause.

"I'm glad you're here," Calavicci said flatly, not meeting anyone's eyes. "I'm taking three day's bereavement leave. My father-in-law is dead."

Prysock's jaw dropped. His mouth worked faster than his mind. "Your father-in-law is dead, and you didn't spend the night with your wife?" he blurted out, unable to stop himself.

The captain stiffened as if he had been struck, and Phillip felt a wrench of guilt. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I didn't mean—"

"Not that father-in-law," Calavicci said, his voice thick and slurred. He moved unsteadily towards the door. He stumbled again, and Penvenen caught him.

"Easy," the young man said. "You want someone to walk you back to your rooms?"

"No!" Calavicci snapped, then flinched as the sound of his own voice resonated unpleasantly through his head. "No," he whispered. "I'm fine."

He made it to the door and made his way out.

There was another uncomfortable pause. Penvenen was the first one to regain his composure.

"I'll draw up the paperwork and inform the Navy," he said.

"Thank you," Phillip murmured, shaking his head. The death of one of his ex-wives fathers had driven him to spend the night in his office, drinking? It was ridiculous. Pathetic. Unacceptable. What the hell was he supposed to do about it?

"A lot of people wouldn't put up with this kind of behavior," Penvenen said, his voice low and pleasant. "A lot of people in your position would put their own careers first. They wouldn't risk everything they've worked for trying to cover up for a superior obviously on the fast track to destruction. They wouldn't be willing to risk being dragged down with him. I'm glad to see you're not that kind of person."

He smiled pleasantly and left Prysock alone. Phillip picked up the empty whiskey bottle and deposited it carefully in the trash can. He straightened the papers on the captain's desk, and sighed wearily.

Thinking better of it, he bent to retrieve the bottle. He'd dispose of it elsewhere. No point lending more fuel to the rumors.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Al leaned against the wall outside of his suite, trying to make the corridor stop spinning. It was one hell of a hangover, and the abyss of irrational grief that was corroding his arteries didn't make it any easier to bear. He hadn't even seen Sharon's father in months: why should he be so stricken by the news that he was dead? It was a good way to go, too, from what Sharon had managed to choke out between sobs: a stroke in his sleep. Painless, peaceful, as dignified as any death could be.

Patrick Quinn, aging, feeble, his mind ravaged by the slow, inexorable progress of Alzheimer's, but despite his failing grip on reality, still fiercely intelligent and observant. Sharon's father, with whom Al had played cards and read Shakespeare, was dead.

Al's head was thrumming mercilessly. He wasn't sure if he was still drunk, or hung over, or what, but he was just about ready to give up

He stumbled through the door, dragging it closed behind him. Al leaned heavily against it. Maxine came around the corner, her eyes wide and anxious.

"Where have you been?" she gasped.

All looked at her, blinking in an attempt to clear his vision. "Max," he croaked.

"What's wrong?" Gentle hands took his arms, offering the support his quaking limbs needed. "Al, what's wrong? Are you sick?"

He noted dimly that she looked like someone who had been up all night. "Max," he breathed, letting his heavy head droop against her shoulder. "Max."

"Come on," she said, guiding him towards the bedroom. "You lie down. You lie down, and when you think you can we'll go and see Doctor Cartwright."

"I'm not sick," Al grunted, sitting leadenly down on the edge of the mattress. He rested his forearms on his knees and lowered his head into his hands. "I'm not sick. I just need a cup of coffee."

"C-coffee," Maxine echoed. "Coffee. I'll go make some…"

"Hot, black coffee," Al told her, trying in vain to organize his errant thoughts. "Strong as you can make it."

"Okay," Max breathed, stroking his hair anxiously before backing out of the room. "Okay…"

Al moaned softly. God, his head hurt. Sharon's dad…

His ex-wife had been in a state, all right. Three sheets to the wind, drinking to ease the pain. At times she had been almost unintelligible, but the message was plain. Her father was dead. She thought Al would want to know.

That was true. Part of Al _did_ want to know, was glad she called. He genuinely liked—had liked—Pat Quinn, and he knew he should attend the funeral. The logical part of his mind, too, told him that it was a thousand times better to find out about these things when they happened, when there was still a chance for some healing… some closure. The alternative was unbearable: that one day, a year from now, he would find himself in Phoenix some sunny afternoon and visit the care home on a whim—and find out _then_.

But there was a part of him, too—drunk, selfish and hedonistic—that thought there was no reason for her to have told him. She could have kept it to herself and borne her burden alone. Sharon hadn't had to foist this onto his shoulders. He didn't need to know that Pat was dead. He didn't need to take a share of the guilt.

He did feel guilty. His whole being agreed on that point. Never mind that it was a death without suffering, clean and cared-for in a warm bed, in the middle of the night without warning. Painless. Peaceful. Without fear. Everything death usually wasn't. It spared Pat another decade of slow deterioration, too, his mind crumbling a little more every day until at last it abandoned him altogether. That would comfort Sharon and her brother, but to Al it seemed strangely irrelevant. Beside the point. The stark truth of the matter as he saw it was that someone he cared about had died alone and unthought-of in an institution.

Again.

Again.

Suddenly someone was petting his face, and the strong, refreshing fragrance of costly coffee caressed his nostrils. Al reached for the mug, almost instinctively drawing it to his mouth. He drank deeply, not caring that he was scalding his mouth with the hot fluid. He inhaled deeply of the vapors, and felt his head clearing a little. Maxine was next to him, her hand on his shoulder and her long fingers toying in his disheveled hair.

"Tell me the truth," she said softly, wrapping her other arm around his waist. "Are you sick?"

Al tried to shrug his leaden shoulders. "A little," he lied. He was unwilling or unable to admit that he had been drinking. She didn't know, he reminded himself. She thought he had stopped.

She didn't need to know.

There was a silence while he took another mouthful of coffee, his burned tongue now almost unable to taste it. When Maxine spoke again, her voice was unsteady and hesitant, and the muscles of her young body were rigid.

"Your—the—Sharon. _Sharon_ called here last night," she said.

"Yeah, she told me," Al grunted.

"She got ahold of you?" asked Max. Al noted dully that there was a strange note to her voice. Hurt. She sounded hurt, that was it. A nagging voice told him that he should pursue this. He should find out why she was upset and try to comfort her, attempt to smooth it over. God only knew what Sharon had said to Max, but Al didn't have the strength to solve problems right now. He had no energy to pour into this marriage now. He was tired, and morning, and caught in a horrible place between inebriated and hung-over, and he just couldn't stand to rip open a marital rift right now. Even if it was a wound that had to be debrided in order to heal, and soon, before it festered, he wasn't up to the task. If Maxine wasn't going to start the fight that she needed, it wasn't going to happen today.

"Yeah, she has my office number," he mumbled. "We were married, you know."

"Yes, I caught that," Max said softly. She sounded as if she was about to cry, and her hands had moved to her lap.

"Her father's dead," Al said harshly, focusing on the mug. "Died at three o'clock yesterday morning. The funeral's tomorrow."

"Oh, no!" Max gasped, and a flat tear rolled down her wan cheek. "She didn't say that…"

"I'm taking three days leave," Al went on. "If you want to come."

"How did he…"

"Stroke," he answered woodenly. "Painless," he reminded himself again. "Peaceful. Do you want to come?"

"Of course," Maxine whispered, and she embraced him again. "I'm so sorry." She rocked a little, and Al allowed himself to roll with her. "Did you know him real well?"

Al closed his eyes and nodded wearily. "He was my friend," he breathed.

The admission cost him more than he dared to admit, even to himself.


	30. Chapter TwentyNine

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Maxine sat in uncomfortable silence as Al taxied the Buick to a halt in front of a large, high-end home in a southern suburb of Phoenix. She smoothed the skirt of her blue dress and stole a sidelong glance at her husband. He looked much better now than he had yesterday. His eyes were no longer red and swollen, his skin had lost the sickening gray tint, and he was now clean-shaven. He looked uncommonly subdued in his dark suit. It was very expensive and very conservative, and he had obviously owned it for years. It was at least two sizes too large for him now, and when he had taken it out of the closet it had had a NASA pin on the lapel. Al had replaced that with his luminescent blue Starbright Project button, which Max thought was a little flamboyant for a funeral, but which she also had to admit looked very dramatic against the dark fabric.

He had slept through most of yesterday, while Max stayed in the living room, reading The Great Gatsby for her English equivalency. She hadn't felt right about going to her office and leaving him. He had seemed so… unwell. She didn't think he was sick, exactly, but there had certainly been something wrong. If she hadn't known better, she would have said he was drunk, but that was absurd. Al didn't drink anymore.

As Al switched off the engine, Maxine felt herself overcome by a flood of second thoughts. This wasn't a good idea. She was here to attend the funeral of her husband's ex-wife's father. Sharon's whole family would be congregated, and they would all see who Al had chosen after divorcing their cousin, niece, sister, and aunt. They would all be looking for flaws, for some indication that Al had let his standards drop, and the worst of it was that it would be easy. Sharon was a strong and independent lady, a college-educated artist. Max was a long-legged nobody, a high school dropout who couldn't even roller-skate. She should have stayed home.

She was here now, though, and it was too late to back out. With a tiny, frightened sigh, Maxine undid her seatbelt and put her hand on Al's arm.

"You okay?" she asked softly.

"Sure," Al grunted. "Let's do it."

They climbed out of the battered old car. Maxine stood on the sidewalk, momentarily petrified, until Al came up and snaked his arm around her waist. He kissed her cheek.

"You look beautiful," he murmured in a voice that she recognized. He wanted to make love, gently and passionately and _right now_. The thought comforted her, and she leaned into his embrace.

"And you look very handsome," she rejoined. "Captain."

He chuckled softly and kissed her again, then navigated them both towards the path leading up to the house.

The door was answered by a teenaged girl wearing a demure black dress of a childlike cut. Her well-teased hair and stylish pink earrings told Max that the dress was probably her mother's idea. The girl looked over the visitors with a cool, scornful eye. She snapped her gum and then turned. In a loud, tactless voice, she called out, "Aunt Sharon! Your ex and your stepdaughter are here!" Then, leaving the door open, she flounced away.

Before Maxine had a chance to feel even more self-conscious and ashamed, Al squeezed her waist gently. "She's a brat," he whispered. "Ignore her."

They stepped over the threshold, and Al closed the front door. A curvaceous woman of about forty-five, also clad in black, came around the corner.

"Al," she said, her voice breaking.

Al managed a weak smile. "Sharon. How're you holding up?"

Before Max realized what was happening, they were embracing, Sharon sobbing softly onto Al's shoulder while he petted her hair, murmuring soft, consoling words. Though she tried not to let envy get the best of her, Maxine couldn't help feeling just a little hurt—and very out of place. She was old and a little dumpy, and there was a smudge of blue paint under one fingernail, but Sharon was still a woman Al had known intimately long before he had even met Max. They had been married for almost a year and a half—practically a lifetime in the eyes of a twenty-two-year-old newlywed. They probably knew everything about each other, while Al was still a mystery to Maxine and she knew she kept secrets from him, too. Though not competition in the physical sense, Sharon was unmistakably someone Al cared about, and Max was starting to feel insecure and a little jealous.

"Aw, honey, ssh." Al was soothing her now, rocking to and fro a little. "Ssh. It's okay."

"It's… it's for the best," Sharon said raggedly. "He was so sick, he was getting worse. Didn't even recognize Debbie… it's for the best…"

"It still hurts," Al said, kissing her hair. The gesture was like a knife in Maxine's gutl. She looked away, but she couldn't block out the sounds.

"But I love him," Sharon went on. "I love him. He's my daddy, he's… he's…" The sobs redoubled and Al sighed quietly.

"Yeah, I know," he said. There was an edge to his voice that meant his mind was wandering on him. Max wanted to hug him as she had done yesterday—but how on earth was she supposed to do that while he had _his_ arms around an ex-wife? "I know."

"The doctor said it was painless," the other woman continued. "Said he never even knew it. And he was getting worse. He might have lived for years and years…" From the tone of her voice, it was impossible to tell whether this was a reason to be thankful that he was dead, or cause for further grief.

Another battery of sobs rang out, this time fading slowly into hiccoughs, and finally into sniffles. Al dug in his pocket for his handkerchief and began to wipe his fourth wife's eyes.

"Poor Sharon," he said, his voice low and sincere. "It's never easy."

She tried to smile. "Thank you for coming," she whispered. Al shrugged deprecatingly, and then Sharon turned. "You must be Maxine," she said, obviously striving for courtesy.

"Yeah," Max said, trying to hide her discomfort as she held out her hand. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thanks," Sharon said. She smoothed her dress and cleared her throat. "Come on in. Debra's making coffee."

She ushered them into an immaculate living room full of overstuffed furniture and flowery knick-knacks. Al settled on the sofa, patting the cushion next to him pointedly. Maxine sat, folding her hands into her lap and pressing her knees together. Sharon left the room and there was a long, awkward silence.

"She seems like a nice lady," Max ventured at last.

Al looked at her in disbelief. "Don't tell me you're getting jealous," he said.

"No!" Max said hastily, embarrassed that he had seen through her so easily. "No, I…"

Al sighed heavily. "I hate funerals," he said, closing his eyes. "What am I doing here?"

Maxine had no idea how to answer that, so she focused on the bowl of potpourri on the coffee table. From the kitchen, a man's voice drifted.

"He'll figure it out and take a cab. He's not stupid."

Al's eyes opened and he sat up straight, leaning forward to listen. His efforts were rewarded when Sharon spoke. "I'll ask Al. I'm sure he wouldn't mind—"

"Certainly not," another woman hissed. Her voice was tight and cool, and obviously much louder than she thought it was. "He can take a cab. Skipping three days of classes like this is ridiculous anyway. He's old enough to take the consequences of his irresponsibility."

"It's his grandfather's funeral," the man argued. "It's not irresponsible to miss school for that."

"The amount of money we're spending to keep him there—"

"Really," Sharon said firmly; "I'll just ask Al."

She came back into the room with a coffee tray. Al looked at her quizzically. "Ask me what?" he said.

"Luke's plane is late," Sharon said. "It won't be in for three hours, and we're supposed to be at the church in ninety minutes. Would you…"

"Of course," Al said, adding sugar to Maxine's coffee for her.

"You don't have to," Sharon said.

"He's my favorite ex-nephew," Al told her.

They could finish each other's sentences, Maxine thought unhappily.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Missed the funeral after all, Al thought as he folded the flaps on a sturdy brown file box. Everything works out for the best in the end.

The unexpected trip to the airport to collect Luke, Sharon's nineteen-year-old nephew who was studying music at Brown University, had proved a last-minute reprieve. Like so many choices, the decision to attend the funeral had seemed like the right one when Al had made it—and proved almost immediately to be a very, very bad idea. The late plane was just the out he had needed.

Al didn't like dead people. He had seen too many corpses in his time. Far, far too many, and in all stages of decay. In Vietnam—but such things didn't bear thinking about. Suffice it to say that dead bodies gave him the heebie-jeebies, and attending an open-casket service wasn't high on his list of favorite activities. Quite apart from that, he wasn't much of a churchgoer. Just the opposite, really, although he had made an exception on the occasion of his first two weddings. He supposed you could count the times he had gone to the Synagogue with Ruthie as "churchgoing", but in his mind it was different. It wasn't the God of Abraham he had a problem with, and besides, he liked the sound of Hebrew prayers. Sharon's father, on the other hand, had been Irish Catholic, and that was territory that Al wasn't going to tread.

They had made it to the church just in time for the procession to the cemetery, and so Luke had had some chance to say goodbye. Maxine had been a great sport about the whole thing. She was an angel.

She was sitting in the vacant wheelchair right now, watching while Al helped Sharon pack up Pat's personal effects. Al knew that something was bothering her: he had noticed last night when she had proved reluctant to accept his advances in the spare room at Sharon's brother's house. This wasn't the time or the place to discuss that, though, so he let it be. He knew this wasn't the way to do things. He knew it was a mistake. Letting things be when he knew there were problems was what had got him into trouble with Beth, back when he had still had her. The Hungarian had never let him get away with it, and neither had Ruthie, but he had done it with Sharon, too, and the marriage had wound up in infidelity and divorce. He should talk to Maxine, but he could do that later. After all, it wasn't like they weren't going to talk about it.

"He always kept everything so neat," Sharon said, breaking the silence as she opened the side-table drawer. "Everything in its place…"

"One gene you didn't inherit," Al teased. Sharon was a bit of a slob. It had driven him right up the wall during their marriage. From a distance it was a quirky and almost endearing trait.

Sharon laughed a little. "My mother was the same way," she said. "She always used to—"

The words caught in her throat and Al turned to see what was the cause of this sudden change in emotion. She had picked up a little framed photograph from amid prayer books and a rosary. After a moment, Al saw that the picture wasn't framed, but taped onto the glass of the frame. A man in his early forties stood next to a woman of about the same age. A younger Sharon, maybe twenty, sat in front of them with a boy of nine or ten on her lap. Al watched as his ex-wife carefully peeled the tape away and moved the picture. Beneath the glass was another photo: a family pose of Pat and a gray-haired woman whom Al assumed was Mary, Richard and his wife Debra, Sharon, and Luke and Clara, both much younger.

"It's how he saw us," Sharon said, gesturing at the first picture. "He didn't want to think of us like this." The second sentence was directed at the framed image.

Al hugged her gently, rubbing her back. She let out a long, shuddering sigh, and then tried to smile. Poor Sharon. She had dealt with her father's illness for so long, practically the only member of his family who had been willing to face the slow ravages of dementia. She hadn't even had the support of her husband, he thought guiltily. Her husband had been too busy with his own problems: the stresses of Starbright, Stevie Penja's cancer, and the unrelenting barrage of nightmares that would creep so deftly over, under and around the iron wall he had erected in his mind.

Sharon turned back to her drawer, and Al started on the bureau. There wasn't much worth keeping, as far as he could see, but it wasn't his place to decide that. He moved the clothing into the box he had constructed.

"What are we going to do with the hats?" Sharon asked as she moved towards the closet. "Dad always said you could tell a gentleman by his hats, but these are horrible!"

She began unceremoniously flinging brightly-colored fedoras onto the bed. Al watched them longingly. They were anything but horrible. They were _fabulous_ hats.

"I like them," Maxine put in, speaking almost her first words of the day. Her tone was mildly confrontational, as if she were daring Sharon to argue with her.

Sharon obliged. "They're hideous," she said. "You think the Salvation Army would take them?"

"Luke might want them," Al suggested, trying not to hope that he wouldn't.

"I doubt it," Sharon said. "They wouldn't even fit him."

Al reached out and picked up the nearest one: bright scarlet with a deep carmine band. He swallowed, and dared to speak. "I'll take them," he said softly.

Sharon laughed. "If it makes you happy," she said.

"Thank you," Al said. Before he could gather the hats, Maxine stood up and began to nest them neatly into a stack.

Back in the closet, Sharon gasped softly. "I forgot!" she exclaimed. She drew out a garment bag and set it on the bed, her eyes dancing with wonder as she reached for the zipper. It separated, revealing an olive-colored garment of unmistakable cut. Al's eyes widened.

"Is that…" he began.

"His uniform," Sharon confirmed. "I forgot he'd kept it. He fought in the second World War," she explained for Max's benefit. "Army. France."

Al nodded, touching the heavy cotton with reverent fingers. A piece of military history, even if it _was_ Army… "He never had much use for the Navy," he said, falling into the pattern of reminiscing. "Told me he knew a pilot named Al, though. One who was shot down and never heard from again."

"Could be," Sharon said. "He never told me that one. He was a loyal American, though. Supported his country to the end. During the war when I was out protesting he was at home backing Johnson all the way. I think he even had a couple of MIAs that he prayed for. Makes me wonder what happened to the—" Her smile changed as she slipped her hand into the pocket of the uniform coat, her fingers causing something to jingle. "To the bracelets," she finished, drawing out an envelope.

Al looked away. He didn't want to think about that. The MIA bracelets that the armed forces had issued during the Vietnam War weren't something he wanted to think about. Maxine, however, was curious.

"Bracelets?" she asked, leaning forward in interest.

Al sighed softly. Maybe he would have to explain. "When a man went missing in 'Nam," he said; "his name went on a list. They made bracelets with names of the lost soldiers. Family and friends would wear them, and strangers could send away for them, too. They'd get a bracelet and a little dossier on the guy they were thinking about." He cleared his throat. "Or praying for," he added, just to be fair. He wondered if anyone had ever worn his name. If Beth had carried one of those bracelets—probably right up until the day she met that damned lawyer…

"Daddy said it was his duty as a soldier of the Union," Sharon added as she opened the envelope. "Private Terrence Watson, United States Army," she read aloud, passing the engraved metal band to Maxine and unfolding the accompanying sheet of paper. "Born September 21, 1948. It says here he was lost on a ground mission in Quang Nam Province, August 14, 1969."

Al gripped the closet door, grinding his teeth against the emotions that were welling up inside him. He closed his eyes, hoping that neither woman was watching him. So many gone. So many dead. So many who had deserved to come home, who had had more to come home for, had never returned. Why the hell had he? Why had he come back to nothing, when guys with wives and kids, parents, brothers and sisters and sweethearts, died in that damned jungle? It made no sense.

"Of course, one wouldn't be enough for Dad," Sharon laughed as she drew out the other. "He'd have to go the extra mile. That was the kind of a man—"

The silence was abrupt, but it didn't penetrate Al's mind until Sharon broke it. "Oh, my God," she breathed.

"What?" Al said, turning around and beating his emotions into submission. Sharon was staring at the piece of metal in her hand as if she was staring at a ghost. "What's wrong?" Al repeated.

Her mouth working silently, Sharon gave him the bracelet. He took it, and his jaw slackened as his fingers traced the engraved letters. It wasn't possible. It was just ridiculous. He could hear Pat Quinn's voice in his ears, the words muddled by the illness slowly destroying his mind, their meaning altered from its original. The reality of his own combat experiences blending with the knowledge of an unknown sailor he had prayed for back in the 'sixties.

"_Knew an Al once. Albert, but no one called him that. Pilot. Most fearless man I ever knew. They shot him down, they did. Never heard from him again…"_

"What is it?" Maxine asked.

Wordlessly, Al handed off the bracelet. Reaching for the accompanying paper, he began to read his own MIA dossier.

"Small world, huh?" Sharon murmured.


	31. Chapter Thirty

CHAPTER THIRTY

"I don't understand, you _didn't_ know him before you met Sharon?" Maxine asked, fingering the flat plaque that bore her husband's name.

"No," Al said as he merged onto the turnpike. "Can we please talk about something else?"

"But he prayed for you," she pointed out. "He didn't even know you and he prayed for you for years. Don't you think that's wonderful?"

"Yeah, look at the good it did me!" Al said sarcastically. "I'm driving a rust bucket, I fly a desk for a living, and I'm married for a woman who doesn't know when it's time to change the subject."

Maxine scowled. "I'll bet _Sharon_ always knew that," she said.

"No, never," Al growled. "None of you ever do!"

"None of us ever do?" she cried in indignation and hurt. "Is that all I am? Another wife? Little woman number five? Just someone convenient to sleep with?"

Al rolled his eyes. "God, no, Max: you know that's not what I'm saying!"

"Oh, yeah?" she retorted. "You were awful friendly with her! Hugging her and petting her hair and—"

"Maxine, her father just died!" Al snapped. "What was I supposed to do?"

"Maybe I should have stayed home!" Maxine cried. "Then you could have given her some sympathy sex, too!"

Al slammed on the brakes, pulling onto the shoulder with undue violence. Max was thrown forward against her seatbelt as her body's inertia rebelled against the sudden halt. She let out a hoarse exclamation of hurt and alarm, rounding on her husband with fury in her bright blue eyes.

But there was rage in Al's eyes, too, and his tongue was quicker than hers.

"If I wanted to cheat on you I wouldn't do it with Sharon!" he snarled. "Though it might be a nice change from the self-effacing _I'm afraid of the dark_ act! Living with you is like living with a junior high school student!" His lip curled into an unpleasant sneer as he bit into her with a nasal, mocking voice. "_Help me! I'm going to fall! I can't do it! I'll fall! I'll hurt myself!_"

Tears flooded Maxine's eyes, and she gasped thrice, raggedly, rendered impotent by the mass of conflicting emotions. "You… you…" she choked out.

"Why don't you just shut up about things you don't understand?" Al went on, still livid. "_Her father died_. You have no idea what that's like! You don't even _have_ a father!"

Her gasp gave voice to the slackening of his jaw and the widening of his eyes as the words fell flat in the Buick's shabby interior. Horror and remorse vied for the title of Most Prominent Emotion in the expressive brown eyes. "Max, I'm sorry…" Al breathed.

"I had a father." She forced the words through her gritted teeth. "I did have a father. He was just a bastard, that's all. And so am I," she added before any vindictive remnant of Al's recent mood could seize upon the obvious insult.

"Max…"

She wasn't going to let him get away with it. She wasn't going to make him feel better by forgiving him for what he had said and how he had acted the last couple of days. Maxine drew her lips into a tight, angry frown.

"I think I had better drive," she said. "Get out of my seat."

"Max, I can drive. I was just—"

The contrition in his plaintive tone was plain, but she knew it didn't mean anything. Next time he lost his temper it would be the same thing all over again. Maxine shook her head curtly. "Get out of _my seat_ in _my car_," she repeated. "Now!"

It was a long, silent and thoroughly miserable ride back to the Starbright compound.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Fear was a part of life. It was as ordinary as breathing. It was as inescapable as the sunrise, or the need for water, or the heavy hands that meant hurt and misery.

You were scared when you got up in the morning, because your persecutor was there, getting a start to the day after a satisfying night. You were scared when you tried to wash your face, because your back was turned to the exit, and He could come up behind you and hurt you. He would hurt you, and She wouldn't try to stop him, because She cared more about Him than She did about you.

That hurt worse than the bruises. The realization that the person you worshiped with innocent, adoring love didn't really want you was a horrible, gnawing pain that haunted you through the day, when the others were thinking of counting or colors or the story that Miss Hansen would read after snack. It ate away at your mind when you stood by the little ash tree at the edge of the yard, watching the others climb on the playground or push each other on the swings. Even when He wasn't in town, you were still pursued by the memory of Him and the knowledge that He was more important than you were. Even though you tried so hard to be good, cleaned up your toys and helped with the dishes and always did your best to stay out of trouble, She would never take your side the way She took His. He was Eric, and you were nothing. A little, stupid, blonde nothing that nobody wanted.

You would cry about it, but crying never did any good. All it did was make you feel worse, with your nose all stuffed up and your pillow all wet… and the great, empty hole was still there. You would hug Loretta as hard as you could, pressing her plastic head against your chest so hard that your ribs would start to hurt, but she could never get inside. She could never plug up the hole. She could never fill the emptiness.

There were nights when She would come into your room, scared and crying, too. She would be shaking with anger and shame because He had called her names: bitch, slut, crack-whore and all kinds of words you didn't understand. Then He had hit Her, too, and for a while maybe She knew what you felt all the time. She would hold you tight, the way you loved to hold Loretta, the way you always wished She would hold you—but it didn't feel good. It didn't heal your heart, because you knew She didn't mean it. You were just a doll to her. Something to cuddle just because there was nothing else. She would squeeze until you couldn't breathe, crying all the time and calling you "baby" and "Maxie, honey", and you would hate it, because it only made you feel more helpless and inadequate. Then when She was done, She'd let go, and leave the room, and you would feel guilty, because you hadn't been able to take away Her hurt. And you'd hug Loretta until your arms were too tired to squeeze anymore.

You would cry and cry because nobody heard you, and nobody cared.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Maxine huddled on the sofa, tears streaming down her cheeks as she hugged herself and tried hard not to breathe too loud. If she breathed too loudly, she would wake Al up, and he would come out here to see what was wrong. She couldn't tell him about the dreams. He would ask her to describe them, and then he'd want to know why she had dreams like that, dreams of the big, angry man who had hated her and hurt her so badly that even now, sixteen years after the day he had _finally _walked out of her life for the last time, she woke up panting in the middle of the night, certain that she could feel the places his fists had struck her.

Al didn't need to know about it. He didn't need to know about her father, one of her mother's transient boyfriends whose seed had taken despite the supposedly reliable Pill. Max didn't even really want to admit the man's existence to herself.

He had wandered in and out of her mother's life after breaking off the engagement because of the pregnancy. The first time he had come back—at least, Maxine assumed it had been the first time, or else she really couldn't figure out how she had survived infancy—had been just after Max's third birthday. He had just turned up one day, demanding money for liquor and drugs, and he had turned into a permanent houseguest for the better part of six months. Maxine remembered that half a year with vague, nightmarish terror. Her birth father had been a violent man, taking his frustrations out on his girlfriend and, more often, the helpless little tyke who wandered so innocently through the never-ending drama of her mother's relationships.

When Max was four and a half, he had come back again, this time getting his own apartment in the slums. That had been much worse. Maxine's mother had continued her liaisons with an abundance of men, and her jealous ex had been constantly embroiled in battles over this. Once again, the child was an easy outlet for frustrations.

Maxine remembered fondly the enormous trucker named Gord, who had finally sent her abusive sire packing permanently. In reality, Gord had been a lazy slob who ate copiously, belched constantly, and greeted her with the ever-popular, "Gimme a beer, squirt", but he was the first adult Max had really admired. In general he ignored her, once he brought her a rock from the Grand Canyon, and above all, he had made her father go away.

Still, even so many years later, she was haunted by the memories. During the day she never really thought of them, except during the dark days of one or two of her own relationships that had been more about abuse and disparity of power than anything else. At night, however, she couldn't control her mind. The nightmares didn't really come often, but they _did_ come, usually provoked by something like the fight she and Al had had today. When they came, they were bad. She was lucky if she only woke up sweating and panicking, frozen with terror. Sometimes she would wake up screaming.

Maxine shivered, clutching her knees and wishing irrationally that she still had her doll. Loretta was the casualty of her last Atlantic City boyfriend, who had teased her so badly that she had tossed out the toy to prove… something. She didn't know anymore. It hadn't been worth it, for sure.

She wanted so badly to be the kind of woman Sharon was. Confident and witty, proud of herself and happy with her life. Able to let Al know what was hurting her, to fall forward into his embrace and cry out her woes on his kind, warm shoulder. Maxine wished with all her heart that she was brave enough to do that. If she were, she would go into that bedroom right now, and crawl under the covers again. She would wake him up gently, and whisper the truth. "I had a nightmare," she would say, and then she would kiss him. Just like all the times he had awakened her with a kiss, they would make love, and fall asleep in each other's arms, and maybe he would even stroke her hair and tell her that it was all right. That it was just a dream, and there was nothing to be afraid of…

Suddenly she realized that all was not as it should be in the darkness. Soft sounds of suffering tore the air. For a split second she was petrified with terror, thinking that she was still asleep, in the throes of a nightmare, and that the sounds were being made by her dream-self. Then common sense asserted itself. She was awake, and the noises were coming from the bedroom.

Max sat perfectly still, her heart racing as she listened to the moans and whimpers. It was Al, she realized, having another dream of his own. She wondered what dark paths he walked in _his_ mind. He had never discussed it, and she knew she would never ask.

The noises grew in volume and intensity. There was a grunt, and a hiss of pain. A hoarse, broken scream. A sharp Italian oath. Then a litany of alien sounds, twanging vowels and sharp "t"s. And a whimper of abject terror. Then words.

"No…"

Maxine closed her eyes. Though it made no practical difference in the absolute darkness of the subterranean suite, the gesture was calming.

"_No…_"

A shiver coursed up her spine.

"No, please…"

There was another stifled shriek of anguish.

"No! Come back! Come back!"

She could hear the bed squeaking as its occupant thrashed. There was an almost musical sound as a flailing arm raked along the spindles decorating the headboard.

"Stop! Wait! Wait for me! I'm coming! Don't go! Wait for me!"

Maxine made her limbs obey her. Her feet slid onto the carpet. Her arms pushed off the sofa cushions, forcing her to stand.

"Wait for me! Please! Please, no…"

Another cry of torment. More muffled noises of misery.

"Wait for me…"

She groped ahead of herself, feeling her way to the bedroom door. Here, the sounds of the restless body were easier to distinguish, and the shallow, tortured breaths were unmistakable. Poor Al. He was probably upset by their fight, too, and his mind was punishing him in the same way hers had. She would go to him. Wake him.

She took the first uncertain steps into the bedroom. There was another blood-chilling exclamation, and Al's next words seared her ears with their desperation and misery.

"_Why won't you wait for me?_"

There was a harsh gasp, and Max knew he was awake. Before she could speak or go to him, he was on his feet. She could hear him stumbling across the bedroom floor. He passed so close to her that she could feel the wind of his passage. Then he was gone. The bathroom door slammed violently and a line of light appeared at its base. The next thing she heard was violent retching, punctuated by unsteady, sobbing gasps.

As soon as she could breathe, she moved to try the door. It was locked, of course, and she wondered what else she could possibly have been expecting. The sounds of heaving continued, and she could smell bile and acid. Shivering, Maxine moved on long, unsteady legs towards the bed. She gathered the covers around her, trembling violently. After a while there was silence, and then the shower began to roar dully on the other side of the thin wall.

Sleep claimed her before the water fell silent.


	32. Chapter ThirtyOne

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

One of the things that Maxine had found most attractive about Al in the early days of their relationship was his love of play. Everything had been a game in the halcyon days before their impromptu marriage—and, indeed, through the early months of that, as well. It had been delightful: though more than twice her age, Al had been teaching her to laugh again, to have fun, to be herself. Recently, things had taken a turn away from carefree lovemaking and fantasy games. However, she thought as she looked up at the plastic arena seat he occupied, he was still good at pretending.

A week had passed since the disastrous excursion to Phoenix. They were back in the city again, this time for another roller derby cattle call. From the eager look on Al's face as he watched the hopefuls tie their skates and perform warm-up stretches, no one would ever have guessed that he and Max had had such an ugly fight. No one would have guessed that they were both ignoring the incident: the pink elephant that neither party wanted to talk about. They had both been pretending, instead, that the whole thing had never happened. Pretending that their lives and their marriage could proceed as if it hadn't, when surely they both knew that things weren't ever going to be quite the same again.

But Maxine was afraid to talk about it. She knew she should, but at the same time, she was afraid. She didn't want to tear their relationship apart irreparably. A hole in the knees beat no jeans at all, right? If Al wasn't going to bring it up, she decided, she was going to have to do her best to keep up this farce, and hope that time would heal the rift without the aid of needle and thread. After all, Al would know if they had to talk about it. He had had a lot of experience with marriage, where all that Max had was a string of live-in relationships that hadn't even lasted long enough to be called common-law.

There was a flaw in her reasoning somewhere, but as the whistle signalled the first wave of competitors to line up for the laps, Maxine's heart leapt into her throat and marital issues were forgotten.

God, she was nervous, she thought, scrubbing her sweaty palms against her leotard-swathed thighs. She had been practicing awfully hard, but she was still unsteady on her feet, and hopelessly slow.

"Practice makes perfect," she whispered, reminding herself that Al had more experience with this kind of thing, too. Experience was good for her, he said, even if she didn't do so great at the tryouts. Every time she tried, she would get better. She'd be more ready for the next one.

Like a job interview, she thought. You had to bomb two or three before you got a feel for them. After that it was easy.

The first group was rocketing around the track, arms swaying and feet flying. This was just to show speed. There'd be tests of form and strategy later, after they had culled out seventy-five percent of the group.

The whistle sounded again. It was Maxine's turn. Heart palpitating, she got onto her feet, knees wobbling, and skated very slowly and awkwardly towards the start. Nine other young women moved in the same direction.

MWMWMWMWMWWMWWMWMMWWMWMWM 

You'd have to be crazy not to like the roller derby, Al thought, watching a whole hoard of leggy beauties clad primarily in spandex. There was a girl with more curls than a show poodle, whose hips were as curvy as a winding country road leading down to Lover's Lane, and the brunette next to her had the finest pair of headlights Al had seen in a long time. There was a redhead in the corner with the poutiest lips… Al had always had a soft spot for redheads. And of course, there was Max, with the longest, most beautiful legs in the bunch. Gorgeous legs. He had to remember to tell her how incredible her legs were…

He wanted to make up for the fight they had had on the day after Pat's funeral. He knew he had said some stupid things. He had snapped at her about stuff that wasn't her fault, and then he had gone and said something really unforgivable. What, he couldn't quite remember, but he knew it had been awful. He had been well on his way to drunk at the time, trying to blot out the image of that MIA bracelet and the almost delirious speculations about Beth. Good thing Maxine had insisted on taking the wheel. He should never have been on the road like that.

Once upon a time, Al would have tried an apology. Candy and flowers and a few sweet words. He had pulled that sort of thing all the time with Ruthie. Once in a while with Sharon. And the Hungarian, probably. Maybe that was why he didn't want to do it this time. He'd tried that with all those marriages, and every single one had got the chop. Maybe it was better to pretend the whole thing hadn't happened. Maybe they could move on without having to talk about it.

One thing was certain. He wasn't going to bring it up until Maxine did.

The girls were lined up now. Max was third from the inside, a brilliant splash of flame in her red leotards and rich orange shirt. The whistle went, and the roller derby hopefuls were off in a shot, arms pumping and feet gliding gracefully over the smooth surface of the track.

All except one. Maxine managed four awkward strides before she tripped. In an attempt to avoid falling forward, she arched her back. This was a mistake. She overbalanced. Her right foot shot out from under her, and down she went. Her beautiful rump landed on the floor with a loud _thunk_.

For a moment she sat there, stunned, and then the referees were hauling her to her feet and pulling her off the track before the others could come around for their second lap. Max was led towards a bench, legs trembling and feet slipping and sliding in every direction. Even at this distance, Al could see her shoulders twitching as she fought her sobs.

Muttering an oath, he got out of his seat and headed for the aisle. The arena wasn't very full, of course. Most of the spectators belonged to the Arizona Roller Derby League, though there were a few other friends and relatives cheering on their candidates. Hardly a crowd, though, and no hindrance as Al rocketed down the steps and into the ring. One of the team captains grabbed his arm, trying to tell him that he wasn't allowed down here. He shrugged her off and jogged towards Maxine.

She was sobbing forlornly, incognizant of the two girls trying to soothe her. Al approached. "Aw, Maxie," he cooed as he crouched in front of her. "Maxie, are you hurt, honey?"

"Go away!" she moaned. "Go away! I'm hopeless, I'm a failure, I'll never do it! Never, ever!"

Al rubbed her knee encouragingly. "Don't talk like that," he said. "You're not a failure. You just fell down."

"I can't do it, I can't, I can't!" she chanted, rocking back and forth.

"Sure you can, hon," one of the other young women said bracingly. Her platitude had just the opposite of the intended effect. Maxine began to sob all the harder, her whole body shaking with the force of her exclamations.

"Go away," Al said sternly, waving off the girls. "Just leave her alone. I've got it."

They backed off unquestioningly. Al lifted himself onto the bench and wrapped an arm around Maxine's shoulder, rubbing comfortingly.

"C'mon, Maxie," he coaxed. "Don't cry. You'll get this. It just takes time. Time and practice and a whole lot of spunk."

"I haven't got any spunk!" Maxine protested. "Worse than that, I've got two left feet!"

"Hey!" Al said. "Hey, that's great! I always thought left feet were sexy!"

The next sob was about forty-three percent guffaw. "Yeah, right," Maxine choked out.

"Way sexier than right feet," Al said, warming into the line. "Now, right _shoulders_ on the other hand… well! _Yumola_!" He kissed hers.

She melted in towards him, her shoulders still shaking with the sobs. Her head fell against his chest and she began to come out of the hysteria of disappointment and embarrassment.

"I'll never do it," she repeated. "I know I'll never do it."

"Of course you will!" Al argued. "You'll do it. You just need to keep trying. You can do anything, you know."

"You really think so?" Maxine asked hesitantly.

"I know so!" Al decreed with conviction.

She sighed and hugged his waist. He stroked her hair. See? They didn't need to talk about the fight. Everything would be just fine without it.

'_Oh, it will, will it?'_ the cruel voice demanded.

'_Of course it will! It has to!'_ Al thought desperately.

Maxine sniffed. "Two stitches in the knee?" she whispered.

Al didn't understand what she meant by that, but she sounded like she was talking to herself anyway, so he pretended he hadn't heard at all.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Donna Elesse sat in the cafeteria, observing without passion as the tides of humanity circulated through the facility. She had been here for most of the morning, trying to make up her mind. Watching crowds had always been a soothing habit. It was one of the reasons she had taken up waitressing to pay for school. People were interesting, especially at a safe distance. When they weren't trying to unload their problems or pry into yours, they could be very diverting. It was fascinating to watch how Cheryl at the sandwich counter treated the customers she liked, and compare it to the way she treated the ones she didn't. The endless cycles of kiss-and-tell romance and intrigue that were inevitable in such a close-knit environment were annoying when you had to hear about them from someone who thought they were the be-all and end-all of existence. It was, however, a lot of fun to watch the way people flirted with or shunned one another on the basis of Starbright's indigenous little soap operas.

Watching humanities puzzles took Donna's mind off of her own enigmas. She didn't know what to do. There was so much that she hated about Starbright, from the management aspects of her job to the reports required by the Committee to Captain Calavicci and his drinking problem. The rumors about _that_ were everywhere, and getting louder and more certain. On the other hand, she was working at the very cutting edge of science. What were the chances that she would do anything this advanced or exhilarating in the private sector?

Naturally, this argument would have carried more weight had she been making any real progress on the Project. Scientists were by nature and necessity patient people, but even saints and seraphim have their limits. Sub Level Omega had been twenty-nine months without a breakthrough—more than two years without progress of any kind And Donna was getting very, very discouraged.

She had two offers, and she hadn't even officially expressed interest in the private sector. A telecommunications company based in Tokyo wanted her on the staff of their Seattle offices. The other offer was with PharmAlliance, a maverick corporation specializing in biotechnology and looking to branch into nanopharmaceuticals. Both organizations were clamouring for her expertise, begging her to consider them. They offered benefits every bit as good as those she had at Starbright, superb salaries, a seventy-thirty split between mandated and self-directed research, and as much funding as she needed. All of Starbright's pros with none of its frugality or rigid secrecy. It was very tempting. Very, very tempting.

"D-Doctor El—I mean Donna…" a soft voice ventured timidly.

Donna looked up into the blue eyes of Maxine Calavicci, who was clutching a sheaf of papers and looking impossibly nervous.

"Maxine!" Donna said warmly. She liked the girl. She really, truly did. "Have a seat!"

"I… I hope I'm not interrupting anything important," Maxine said as she took the chair across from Donna.

The scientist motioned to her almost-empty mug. "Does it look important?"

"Harvey used to say that coffee was a world religion," said Maxine.

Donna chuckled. "It sure is around here," she agreed. Then, after a pause, "Who's Harvey?"

"Old boyfriend," Maxine said, coloring a little. "Donna, I was wondering… you know how you said if I ever had any questions about science…"

Donna felt a frown forming, and fought to hide it. It had been months since she had offered that invitation. Why on earth would the child choose _now_ as the time to take her up on it? "Yes, of course," she said pleasantly.

"Well…" Maxine set down her papers all at once, as if she was afraid that if she didn't charge ahead full-bore she would lose her nerve. "I was trying some physics problems and I don't understand them," she said.

"Physics problems?" Donna asked.

"J-just for fun," Maxine said hastily. "I mean, not for anything important. I just thought it would be interesting."

Donna took the sheaf of papers. They were xeroxed out of some kind of textbook. The top each page, where the title should have been, had been obscured by another piece of paper. She looked at the problems. It was a unit on basic kinetics: centripetal motion and centrifugal force.

"Where did you get these?" she asked.

"Library?" Maxine said hastily. When the physicist shot her the briefest of questioning glances, she faltered. "I mean my cousin," she said; "her kid's taking this right now, and she sent some for me to try. I… uh… I liked it in high school?"

"And now you can't remember anything you learned in the eleventh grade," Donna said, some of her long-harbored scorn of underachievers filtering unwittingly into her voice. "Typical."

Maxine's expression was so desolated and hangdog that Donna regretted her last comment. She smiled. "Sure," she said. "What don't you understand?"

The young woman's face blossomed into a grateful smile.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

"People drink in times of grief," Doctor Thorgard said. "Why, the Irish are known for—'

"Al's Italian," Phillip Prysock sighed. Thorgard looked at him sadly. The Deputy Administrator had been losing sleep over this: it showed in his sunken, shadowed eyes, in the stress lines creasing his forehead, and in the haunted look that seemed to hover around his very soul. He was a good man trying to do his best to deal with a situation that no one should ever have to face.

The problem, of course, was that you could say exactly the same thing about Calavicci, and it would be just as true.

"That's true," Thorgard allowed. "Al's Italian, but Sharon is Irish."

"So he was observing a national practice from his ex-wife's culture in his office, while she was God knows where, but definitely not with him?" Prysock said, frowning a little.

Thorgard shook his head. "No," he said. "I'm saying that he was trying to cope with a difficult, emotional situation in the best way he knew how."

"If the best way he knows how to deal with grief is to turn to alcohol, doesn't that mean he's an alcoholic?" Phillip asked helplessly.

Thorgard shook his head. "He has a problem. That doesn't mean he has a disease. He—"

There was a knock on the door of the lab. Prysock turned faster than the aging chemist, and he gasped, flushing a deep scarlet. As Thorgard turned, he saw why. At his age, however, you stopped worrying so much about the consequences of being overheard. Thorgard smiled.

"Why, Max!" he said. "Come in, my dear!"

She ventured into the room. She carried several sheets of paper. "I… I was wondering…" She cast a nervous glance at Prysock.

The Deputy Administrator sighed. "I'm not going to do anything and I'm not going to say anything," he told Thorgard. "It's only his second strike. Even the American League doesn't bump 'em out until three."

"God doesn't keep score," Thorgard said, but he let the younger man go. Then he turned back to the still younger Mrs. Calavicci. "Yes, my girl. What were you wondering?"

"I… I'm working on some chemistry problems—just for fun—and I was wondering if you could help," she said hastily. "It's stoichiometry, it doesn't make sense…"

"Stoichiometry? Let me see." Thorgard took the paper. A tiny smile tugged at his lips. He recognized the questions. He had composed them. He picked up a little on the side writing for the High School Equivalency Boards in several states. Young Maxine was working towards her diploma! She was a smart girl and obviously excellent at adaptation. He never would have guessed she hadn't finished high school. Good for her, going back to work towards it.

She didn't need to know he knew, of course.

"I'd be glad to give you a little advice, child," Thorgard pledged sincerely.

MWMWMWMMWWMMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Commander Bancroft was working on his monthly report when Maxine Calavicci came into the area of the Project that the civilians called the clinic, and the military men called the sickbay. She looked oddly hesitant and vulnerable. Bancroft felt oddly nauseated. He had a sneaking suspicion that the first words out of her mouth would be along the lines of "I'm six days late with my period". Sure, she was on the Pill: he prescribed it himself. But it wasn't guaranteed, and in an active young body… he wasn't comfortable with Captain Calavicci's marriage to a little wisp of a thing young enough to be his daughter. If they wound up having a baby, well, that would just be _wrong_. Calavicci would be almost sixty when the kid started school. By the time it graduated he'd be seventy—if cirrhosis or a drunken accident didn't kill him first.

Instead, the young woman approached his desk with an unusual greeting. "Doctor?" she said. "You… you're good at biology, aren't you?"

"Well, yes…." Bancroft said. "I suppose…"

"Could you help me?" she asked, holding out a stack of Xeroxed sheets. "I've been reading up, and I have some questions."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Maxine sighed with relief. She had just finished a session with Doctor Trina Dower, a particle physicist and one of the best badminton players in the Project. She had agreed to help with Geometry. Max had also found tutors for Algebra and all three sciences. If she could only find someone to grade her papers for English, she would be all set.

Unfortunately she couldn't think of a single person on the Project who was interested in English. They were all scientists. Al loved literature, but if she asked him, she would have to explain… and the last thing she wanted was for him to know how stupid she was, what an idiot she had been. A high school dropout, a quitter, a failure… Al would find out. He'd find it all out and he'd know how dumb she was. No, she couldn't go to Al. She would just have to find someone else. Someone smart and educated, good at English, willing to help her. Someone she knew, someone friendly. Someone who would be as happy to help her with that as the others had been to help with the math and science.

But whom?


	33. Chapter ThirtyTwo

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Thanksgiving was coming, and it was time for Daniel Penvenen to send his annual report back to Virginia. He sat at his desk wearing a pensive frown as he looked at the typewriter. It was manual (no memory!) and the ribbons were cleanly combustible. The perfect anonymous tool. Of course, he couldn't keep his own copies, a fact that he still, after three years at Starbright resented. However, he acknowledged the necessity.

His locked drawer full of black composition books full of the carefully chronicling of Captain Calavicci's many vices and indiscretions were one thing. If it were ever discovered, it could be easily misconstrued into the embittered musings of a disgruntled and mentally unbalanced employee. If they ever came to light, Dan would lose face, but he would retain his cover. The indiscretion would not mar his record. Maybe the next assignment would be less prestigious. Certainly it would be less autonomous, but he wouldn't be cast off entirely.

His annual reports, however, were not so ambiguous. Thus, they had to be guarded with absolute care. That was par for the course. No matter what, the Company never took the fall. Not even the Mafia had such a sophisticated system for the delegation of blame. Like his criminal counterparts, too, Dan knew he would be well rewarded for his willingness to bear the blame if anything went wrong.

Nothing would go wrong, he reflected with smug satisfaction. He was too good to get caught, even if it was risky to let the business with Calavicci become so personal. Even in his most righteous moments, when Penvenen was absolutely certain that the captain was a deadly liability, he could not deny that his interest in the matter had emotional elements, too. The truth was that Dan didn't like Calavicci. He never had, and he never would. His informal manner and his loose morals were every bit as repugnant to the straight-laced young man as his irresponsibility and rapidly progressing alcoholism. It was the latter traits, however, that could be relied upon to bring him down.

With an anticipatory smile, Dan began to type, his fingers flying until the keys jammed. His grin turned rueful as he untangled the slender metal arms and resumed more slowly.

Patience, he reminded himself, was fundamental.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al glanced at the alarm clock. Nine in the morning. There was a curious decadence to being allowed to lie in so late. Most mornings his alarm yanked him from liquor-induced slumber with a cruel klaxon long before dawn would creep over the desert above. He would force himself through his morning routine, and usually make it to the office by half past seven, unless the previous night's terrors had been especially horrific. The day's labours lasted until well after nightfall; though he tried to be finished by nine or ten, he often found himself fettered to his desk until well after midnight.

Not today, Al promised himself. Today was Saturday, and he wouldn't go near his office. Today he was going to drive into Wickenburg to see Stevie, and when he got home he would take some time to spend with Max. It mean more than she could possibly know that he could come home to the comfort and security of another person instead of the cold loneliness of an empty house. It was what he most needed from marriage, but AL wasn't an idiot. He knew that her needs and desires differed from his own. Being not inexperienced in relationships, Al knew that all women were like that, with their own demands. He just hoped Maxine's weren't too demanding in the long run.

He rolled out of bed and got unsteadily to his feet, fighting a familiar nausea. His knees trembled a little as he took three uncertain steps towards the closet, and the hand that gripped the edge of the mirrored door shook violently. Angry at his body's weakness, Al knelt down and groped for his hatbox. Beneath his dress whites cap was a bottle of bourbon. Shielded from any chance intrusion by the curtain of brightly colored shirts and equally flamboyant frocks, Al unscrewed the lid and raised the vessel to his lips.

The calming effect was immediate. The muscles of his face and neck relaxed tangibly as the fluid slid down his throat. Al closed his eyes and sighed in quiet relief. Another deep quaff gave him the strength he needed to get back onto his feet. The nausea would fade, he knew from experience, once the alcohol got into his system. Some of the shaking was gone already. He wrapped his bathrobe around his pale body and shuffled out of the bedroom.

"Hey," he grunted softly, nodding in Maxine's general direction.

She looked up from the book she was reading. "Morning," she said, her expression a little vacant. "You feeling okay?"

"Fine," he lied, then went into the bathroom.

The hot water blasting from the shower head went a long way to ease the inexplicable aches in his bones and soothed his nerves, still raw from the terror that had awakened him in the night. It wasn't fair. He took precautions every evening, and still the nightmares would break through. Still he woke up time after time, drenched in perspiration and wracked with the terror of old memories.

Al climbed out of the shower and dried himself as thoroughly as he could. Shaving was always an adventure these days: sometimes his hands shook too badly to manage it. By now, however, the bourbon was discharging its duties admirably, and soon his face was smooth again. He frowned at the sight of himself in the mirror. As usual, it was his eyes that gave him away. They were red and bloodshot, and the half-moon shadows beneath them weren't really flattering. At least he could do something about the former. He took the Visine bottle from the medicine cabinet, and pinched his lower lid into a pouch. Two drops in the left eye, two in the right, and the redness was already disappearing. He gave each jawbone a quick slap with a hand moistened with Aqua Velva, and his morning toilette was complete.

He returned to the bedroom and made short work of dressing. He chose comfortable, functional clothes, and refilled his flask from the bottle of whiskey hidden in the box spring of the bed before slipping it into his back pocket. He exhaled slowly. He was ready to face the day. Thank God it was Saturday.

Maxine was still buried in her book when he came back into the living room. It would have been more correct, really, to call it _his_ book It was a dog-eared copy of The Grapes of Wrath. Al's brow contracted in puzzlement.

"What happened to Bradbury, Asimov, and the latest adventures of Captain Kirk?" he asked.

"Doctor McCoy," Maxine said absently as she turned the page. "Kirk's an egomaniac."

"Ye-es," Al allowed; "but he's definitely not from Oklahoma."

She looked up. "I can't read your books?" she asked. There was something like hurt in her voice, but it might have been conflict, too.

"Sure you can," Al said. "Read whatever you want." He hid his bottles behind the science texts, anyway, and she wasn't likely to touch _those_. "It's just… surprising."

This time, the hurt was unmistakable. "Why?" Max asked. "I'm not smart enough to read this?"

"You don't have to be smart to read Steinbeck." Al flinched, realizing what he had just said. If only his head were clearer! The ghosts were still tugging at the edges of his sanity. "I mean, of course I don't think you're stupid, Max. It just doesn't seem like the kind of thing you'd be into."

"Well, I am," she said indignantly. "Now if you don't mind, I'm trying to read!"

"Sure," Al breathed. He drew a hand across his forehead. "You want breakfast? I'm heading out to Wickenburg."

"No thanks," said Max. Her eyes were back on the book. "I thought I'd stay here today," she added. "I've got a lot of work to do for the Thanksgiving potluck."

"I thought the whole point of potluck suppers was that they were low-maintenance," Al said. "The food's certainly nothing to write home about."

"It will be this time," Maxine said. "Doctor Eleese's promised to bring some East Indian dishes she's good at. You'll enjoy it."

Al flinched dramatically. "I wouldn't eat anything prepared by Eleese if I were you," he warned.

"Why not?" Max asked.

"Ever hear the one that goes 'Mirror, Mirror on the wall…'?"

She laughed a little. "You think I'm more beautiful than Donna?" she asked.

Al frowned. "Since when are you on a first-name basis with the Snow Queen? She got you piecing together impossible ice puzzles, too? Do I have to go out and find the woman with the rose on her hat? Maybe that robber girl and her reindeer could give me a hand. I heard they were in town last week…"

"Stop it!" Max said firmly. "Donna's really nice."

"Oh, I know," Al said sarcastically. "The snide remarks, the frigid attitude, how could anyone miss the heart of gold?"

"Just because she wouldn't sleep with you doesn't mean she's not a nice person," Maxine told him primly.

Al stiffened in indignation. "Where the hell did you get that idea?"

"I was talking to Jean," Max said.

"Jean Talarski? With Human Resources?"

"No, Corporal Gene Dorsey, with the Marines," Maxine said sarcastically.

That reined Al in short. He knew Max was just sniping with that comment, and her information had undoubtedly come from Jean Talarski, the Project gossip and Al's ex-girlfriend. What shocked him was that he had never heard of Corporal Dorsey. "You know the staff better than I do?" he choked out.

Maxine shrugged. "Not all the staff. Just the ones who participate in intramurals. Gene plays badminton. Has a great backhand."

They were so far off the topic now that Al honestly didn't know whether this was going to turn into a fight or not. "Oh," he said flatly.

"Anyway, say 'hi' to Celestina for me," Maxine said neutrally, turning back to her book. "I made some sugar cookies yesterday. They aren't very pretty, but Stevie'll like them."

"Thanks," Al mumbled, his voice flattened by confusion. At least she wasn't going to give him a hard time about his fling with Jean. He started towards the kitchenette.

"Donna's my friend," Maxine said presently. "I don't like it when you're rude about her. She's a very good person. It's just that she isn't happy here."

Al whirled again. "Not happy? This is _her_ Project!" he cried.

"I know that," Max placated. "But things aren't going well, they aren't making progress downstairs, and you know that Donna doesn't like to run things."

"Doesn't like to run things?" Al was aware that he was parroting every second sentence, but Maxine's words were just too flabbergasting and ridiculous. "The woman is a perfectionist and a control freak and—"

"And a scientist," Maxine said firmly. "She's not an administrator like you. She doesn't know how to manage a department."

"For someone who doesn't know how to manage a department, she does one hell of a good job!" said Al.

"Thank you. I'll tell her you said that." Again, Maxine's tone was curiously formal. She sounded… she sounded much more like the Recreation Co-ordinator talking about another department head than she did his young, rather uncertain wife. "Just because she does it well doesn't mean she likes it, though. You might want to look into having somebody else take over some of her duties if you don't want to lose her."

"I'm not going to lose her," Al scoffed. "Starbright's her baby. Besides, she's got a contract."

"The opt-out clause came into effect six weeks ago."

It wasn't adding up. It just didn't make sense. "How do you know so much about Eleese's contract?" Al asked, trying to ignore the voice berating him for being such an idiot. He had forgotten about the opt-out clause. Of course, he couldn't be expected to know every detail of every scientist's contract, and yet he knew that there had been a time when he _would_ have. Was his mind getting duller as the years went by?

"I listen to her," Max said. "You need to spend less time in your office. You're going to lose her, and she might not be the only one."

"I am not!" Al said. With a noise of exasperation, he caught up the keys and his wallet and left the room, pushing her words out of his mind.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Maxine sat at her desk, laboring over comprehension questions. They took all the fun out of reading—a notion she had formed during her brief tenure in high school, and one that she was discovering was still all too valid. She had really enjoyed the morning, spent finishing the book in the comfort of her living room. The afternoon, spent with a notepad and the equivalency workbook, was dull and laborious. She found her mind wandering back to Al, who was probably supping at the Penjas' table right now.

He was out of touch with what was going on around the Project. If he had no idea that Donna was unhappy, then he had to be almost completely unaware of the needs of the staff. She wasn't sure if it was cause for concern—after all, it was the job of Human Resources to look after employee morale—but she worried just the same. She had only known Al for about a year, but it seemed to her that he had taken an interest, once upon a time, in the welfare of his staff. She thought she remembered lying in a motel bed and listening to his oblique musings about the concerns of his subordinates. What had changed?

He was spending too much time in his office. He was working too hard, pouring all of his energy into paperwork. Every morning, he woke up looking tired and ill. Every day she could catch him with red, bloodshot eyes that he seemed able to clear on command. There were taught, haggard lines at the corners of his mouth, and his step was heavy. In all the time she had known him, he had never been the picture of health, and he was not a morning person, but she was pretty sure that he had been declining lately, maybe over the last couple of months.

The recent change in their relationship had not escaped her notice, either. Al was more distant, more formal. He was treating her more like a co-worker than a wife, except of course during their bouts of nocturnal passion. His nightmares were getting worse, too. It was a rare night that he didn't wake her, moaning and thrashing, or rouse her with desperate kisses and frantic foreplay, or stir her from slumber by his absence from their bed.

She wondered what was wrong. She hoped it was nothing. Probably just stress coming out in bad dreams. Her own nightmares seemed to be triggered by things like that.

Maxine tried to focus on her exercises, but it was a futile endevor. She pushed the writing tablet away in disgust. What was the point, anyway? Sure, she could finish learning the book, and write another essay, but who would read it? She had no idea how she was doing. At least with the other subjects she had people to go to with questions, and answer keys to give her a sense of how she was doing. There was no such thing as an answer key for an English paper, though. She needed someone to grade it for her.

Through the thin wall of her cubicle she could here the clattering clangs of a manual typewriter. Max felt herself cheering up a little. Dan Penvenen was in his office! He was another one who often seemed to put in more hours that he should. Unlike Al, however, the younger man was well-equipped to cope. He didn't morph into a red-eyed automaton when he pulled overtime. He was always pleasant, polite and inquiring. Always interested in listening. He was just the person she needed to talk to in her present mood.

She left her office and rapped on the door to his. The typing stopped abruptly.

"Who's there?" The voice from within was terse, almost paranoid—not like the Dan Maxine thought she knew.

"Max Calavicci," she said. "I needed a little break, wondered if you might, too."

The door opened just enough for the trim, neatly-suited man to slip out. He locked it carefully behind him, and smiled his white, charismatic smile. "My pleasure, Mrs. Calavicci," he said. "Can I buy you a coffee?"


	34. Chapter ThirtyThree

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

It was full night when Al returned to the Starbright compound. He was relaxed enough after a day with Stevie that he actually exchanged friendly words with the Marines at the gate. They were annoyed at a Lance Corporal named Carter, who had apparently dodged the evening's duty on the basis of some not-quite-credible excuse. Al commiserated for a few minutes, and then parked the Buick next to his bike.

He retrieved his parcels from the back seat with care. A trip into town with the car and without Maxine was not to be wasted. He had taken the opportunity to swing by the liquor store and replenish his stockpile. True, he had spent more than he could really afford, but the stuff didn't go bad, and he would use it sometime.

The Marine at the door saluted crisply, and Al didn't see the looks he cast the not-really-innocuous bags. He hurried through to the back corridor where the elevators were concealed from casual visitors. He went to his office first, and made short work of secreting his purchases around the room. He would move bottles to the suite as needed, but they were safer here. Less chance of discovery.

Al had only the container of baking in his hand as he made his way back to his rooms. He unlocked the door and entered, starting up the amicable banter as he did in the hope that Max wasn't sore about their pseudo-argument this morning.

"Hey, kiddo," he said. "Celestina says 'hi', and she says you work too hard, which I think means that she misses you. Stevie wondered where you were, but he doesn't like your cookies. Took two bites, and pushed the rest awa—"

He halted abruptly. Maxine wasn't there.

That was odd. Weird.

Maybe she was in her office?

The spiteful voice taunted him: _'Maybe not!'_

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

He was polishing his _curriculum vitae _for what seemed to be the hundredth time. The NASA posting looked interesting. It wasn't the kind of pure theory that he loved, but it was at least in the field of quantum physics, and wouldn't involve any teaching. It was a start.

He sighed softly and dug out his wallet. Inside the billfold was an old, well-worn snapshot. His sister, Katie, had taken it, and her characteristic overeager haste showed in the sloppy composition and the slightly lilting angle of the frame. That was one of the reasons he liked it: it reminded him of her.

It was a memento of his high school graduation. He stood between his parents, a scrawny sixteen-year-old in his dead brother's suit, his nose slightly too large for his face. His mother was smiling radiantly, her pride and happiness captured in an instant during which they briefly erased the care, worry and grief of the last two months. His father was tall and smiling, looking the very picture of hardy golden age…

There was a lump in his throat. He swallowed against it and tucked the picture back into its place. He had made it through the darkest period of his life, and finished high school on time and with perfect grades despite Tom's death. He'd pull through this time, too. If he did get this job, he'd probably have a chance to use some of his extra languages. That would be nice: with the exception of French and Spanish, he didn't have enough opportunity to practice.

Besides, it might be fun to work for NASA.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The question was abrupt and unexpected, interrupting Al's usually silent, focused breakfast.

"Where were you last night?"

Maxine paused with the pitcher of orange juice halfway out of the refrigerator. She laughed a little, incredulous. "_What_?"

Al looked up from the scrambled eggs he had been methodically attacking. "Where were you last night?" he repeated, more slowly.

"In bed with you," she said. There was something in his scrutinizing stare that angered her, and she added meanly, "Until you got up at three for a cold shower!"

A scarlet flush flooded Al's pallid cheeks, and he swallowed tightly before speaking again. "Where were you when I got back from town?"

"On the sofa," Maxine said. "You came in and went straight into the bathroom." Her indignation gave way to a persistent fear that had been gnawing at her for weeks. "You spend a lot of time in there. Are you feeling okay?"

"Of course I'm feeling okay!" Al groused. Swiftly, he shifted back into intense investigative mode. "I was home at ten. Where were you?"

"You came in at eleven!" Max protested.

"I came in at ten," Al argued. "You weren't here. So I went to the lounge, but you weren't there. Then I went to Sub-Level Omega, since you're so friendly with Donna Eleese. Guess what? You weren't there! You weren't in the cafeteria, either, so I went to your office—"

Maxine's heart began to hammer in his chest. "You were in my office?" she cried.

"No. Light was off, door was locked, and you weren't there," Al went on. "So then I went to the gym, but—"

"I wasn't there!" Max finished. She was torn between anger at his lack of trust, and relief that he hadn't seen her workbooks. "I went for coffee, all right?"

"You weren't in the cafeteria," he said flatly, mashing his eggs absentmindedly with his fork. "The eatery upstairs closes at eight."

"I went to that diner twenty minutes east of here," Max told him. "The one with the really good coconut cake."

He sneered. "What'd you do, hike?"

"What? No. Drove." She frowned in confusion.

"Drove what?" he said. "I had the car, and my bike was here when I got in."

"Someone drove me, okay?" she said. His scrutinizing stare was making her very uncomfortable. What on earth was going on behind those intense brown eyes?

"Who?"

"A friend."

"Eleese?"

"No, she's been working 'round the clock trying those new algorithms. You know that." Maxine laughed a little again, this time to release some of the pressure on her nerves. She move to the cupboard and took out a glass, filling it from the pitcher.

"Then _who_?" Al snapped, with the imperious tone of one whose question was more of an order than a query.

She shook her head. "Why does it matter?"

"It matters!" he growled. "Who were you with?"

Then it hit her. He was jealous. He thought she was flirting with someone else. Max felt a sickening knot form in the pit of her stomach. Memories of her father flooded her mind. A jealous man was a dangerous man. Her mind raced. She could either tell the truth, and hope he wouldn't think the worst, or she could cook up a plausible lie. She could say she had gone with Jean… but Jean couldn't be trusted in a conspiracy: she'd blab it all around the Project. As oblivious as Al was getting to the social currents here, he would still probably hear about it. Oh, _why_ hadn't she taken the out about Donna? Al had even suggested it!

"_Who were you with_?" he repeated. Though he made no gesture, nor any move to rise, the distance between them seemed to close by virtue of his expression. Maxine realized for the first time what a commanding presence he had, and the inane thought flitted through her mind that he _was_ a Naval captain, after all.

And you couldn't lie to a Naval captain.

"Dan Penvenen," she blurted. "We were both working late, and I needed a break, so he offered—"

Al slumped in his chair with a long exhale, and the tension in the air vanished. "Dan's a great guy," he said. "A real great guy. He treat you?"

"Yes," Maxine whispered.

Al nodded, and smiled a little. "Sounds like Dan. Heck of a nice guy."

He drew a hand across his forehead in a typical Calavicci gesture, and got to his feet. "Well, see you," he said, hugging her waist briefly and kissing the corner of her mouth. "Have a good day, kid."

"Wait!" Max cried as he put his hand on the doorknob. "You haven't finished your breakfast!"

"I'm not hungry," he said.

Then he was gone.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

"You look like hell," Tony Wendell said, looking up as the Project Administrator entered his surface-level office.

Al shrugged. "Busy with reports for the committee. You know me: allergic to paperwork."

Tony laughed. He was the Head of Aboveground Development, charged with the duty of maintaining the Project's external cover. He was also the veteran of two marriages, and the closest thing Al had to a real friend.

"More like allergic to work," he jibed. Al snickered a little, appreciatively. Tony wasn't _exactly_ a friend, he reminded himself. More an amicable acquaintance. Better not to make friends. Friendship led to betrayal or grief. One way or another, friends would break your heart in the end.

There was a silence.

"You never come up here anymore," Tony said. "What's on your mind?"

"It's Max," Al said, forcing the words out before he could change his mind. He had to get this off his chest. These kind of thoughts would eat at you forever if you didn't get them out. "She… I came home from town Saturday night, and I couldn't find her."

Tony grimaced sympathetically. "Damn," he said.

"I asked her about it… yesterday…" Al chafed the back of his neck with his hand. "She said she went for coffee with Dan Penvenen."

"At night?" Tony asked skeptically.

"I believe her!" Al said forcefully.

"Sure." Tony gestured at the spare chair. "Sit down. You really do look like hell. I've got just the thing." He rummaged in his desk drawer. "Always keep it around in case of emergencies. I've got a stressful job, you know!"

Al chuckled at the familiar phrase. "Don't we all?" he asked. He tried not to let loose a moan of gratitude when Tony produced a half-bottle of Jack Daniel's.

"No glasses," Tony apologized. "You care?"

Not that long ago, Al would have. He took the luxury of clean dishes very seriously—or had. Now, he just wanted the comfort that that bottle promised. He hadn't had any since his wake-up drink, and that had been almost an hour ago now. He shook his head, and felt a surge of gratitude when Tony handed him the bottle first.

"Bottoms up!" the civilian said.

"Amen," Al grunted, and took a long swig. He passed it back to its owner, and Tony drank, too.

"So you think Maxine and Penvenen are…" Tony gestured explicitly.

Al shook his head. "Not Penvenen. Dan's a great guy. Wouldn't do that to me."

"I agree not Penvenen," Tony said. "He's such a Puritan he wouldn't know where to put his little John Alden. You think she's cheating on you with someone, though, don't you?"

"I dunno," Al sighed. "I don't… she wouldn't do that, would she?"

"Why not?" Tony said. "She's—what?—thirty years younger than you are?"

"She's a good kid."

"Sharon was a good woman."

Al flinched.

"Sorry," Tony told him sincerely. "That was a low blow. She was a slut, and you didn't deserve it."

"No," Al said. "No, she's a good woman. They all were. But Max is different. She's not going to leave me." He reached out for the bottle, and threw his head back. When he emerged, his hands were steadier, and his heart calmer.

Tony shrugged. "If you say so," he said noncommittally. "After all, it's not like you've had a bunch of bad experiences, or anything."

"Stop it!" Al said. "She's not cheating on me!"

"You came up here because you thought she was," Tony pointed out.

"Stop it!" Al said. "She's not cheating."

"You would know."

Al pursed his lips and got to his feet. "Thanks," he said coldly. "You're a real expert on women, aren't you?"

Tony shrugged. "I've seen more action than you have lately. There's that blonde in Programming…"

"I'm happy with Max," Al said.

"You're not happy," Tony argued. "But I don't think that little piece of perfection has anything to do with it."

"I didn't come here looking for a shrink," Al said.

"No, you came here because you think your wife—"

"She isn't cheating on me!" he shouted.

Again, Tony's shoulders rose and fell. "If you say so."

Al left the room before he could say something he would regret. Friends always let you down in the end.

Max wouldn't cheat on him. She wouldn't. She just… she wouldn't.

Again, the voice sneered at him.

'Oh, wouldn't she?' 

Al doubled his pace. He had to get to his office. He needed another drink. And anyway, he really should get back to those reports.


	35. Chapter ThirtyFour

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The BOQ was next to the Starbright hangars. It was very convenient for the half-dozen test pilots who manned the experimental jets. Most of the Marine guards lived there as well—there were maybe ten with school-aged kids who commuted from Wickenburg, and a few with wives and babies who resided in the fourplexes on the other side of the main structure. There were a few Naval officers as well, but the Marines outnumbered them.

Strictly speaking, military protocol didn't encourage enlisted men hanging around the officers' lounge. The less-than formal attitude of the Project Administrator, however, encouraged a more relaxed atmosphere here than at most bases. Not even Colonel Smythe's affinity for protocol could override the influence of the great war hero and world-famous astronaut. Whether the Head of Security liked it or not, everyone took their cue from Captain Calavicci.

Lance Corporal Carter was glad. The officer's lounge in the BOQ was quieter than the common room in the enlisted barracks next door. It usually wasn't as busy, which was nice, because Nick liked to read, and that was a good way to get teased.

Today, he was sitting in a corner by the window, poring over one of his favorite books. It was a work of nonfiction, and a recent publication, too, and so quite unusual fare for a young man who had been weaned on the classics. This book was a change from Dickens and Tolstoy, but Nick loved it. It was, he thought, exactly what the _New York Times_ had called it: "a riveting account of American tenacity and unequalled heroism".

It was the story of Captain Calavicci's years Missing in Action in Vietnam. Brief accounts of his capture and that of Air Force Captain Robert White, and a summary of Calavicci's months at the Hanoi Hilton and the camp called Briarpatch, at Xam Ap Lo, were followed by three hundred pages of grim and often graphic anecdotes about the secret jungle camps and the four years that those two officers had spent in the NVA's answer to hell.

There were parts of it that Nick couldn't bear to read. The descriptions of some of the atrocities perpetrated upon the missing men, held deep in enemy territory far from even the memory of the Geneva Convention, were too much to stomach. He hated to think of anyone going through such things, especially his revered captain. Balancing these horrors, though, were the accounts of then-Lieutenant Calavicci's courage and selflessness, gleaned from men with the good fortune to be transferred to central state prisons. It was these passages that Nick devoured with the hunger of a boy worshiping his hero from afar. Captain Calavicci was a symbol of everything Nick admired about the American military. He was fearless and unstoppable, and full of integrity, loyal to his nation and obedient to his government, and yet still very much an individual. You had only to look at his eccentric clothing and his buoyant attitude to tell that he was his own man.

Nick was so absorbed in the book that he didn't notice when a group of young officers entered the room and settled around one of the card tables. Only when the first laugh rang out did Nick realize that he was not alone. He tried to keep reading, but it was impossible to ignore what the other young men were saying.

"If you ask me, it's the other way 'round," Lieutenant Montgomery said.

Ensign Martins laughed incredulously. "You think _he's _cheating on _her_?"

"Why not?" Montgomery asked. "He's a womanizer."

"And an alcoholic son of a bitch," added Lieutenant Bolton.

"What has that got to do with it?" demanded Marine Captain Fischer.

"Al-co-hol-ic. Addict, right?" said Bolton. "Looking for a better high, a bigger thrill. First the booze, then the bike—why not sex?"

"If you had a wife with legs like that, would _you_ look elsewhere?" Martins scoffed, still disbelieving. "Be realistic. She's a babe!"

"She's also busy," Bolton said. "Spends most of her time making the rest of the staff happy—"

"Does a good job, too," Martins interrupted. "You guys going to sign up for basketball?"

Bolton rolled his eyes. "Forget basketball. I'm trying to say that she's probably not home very often. When was Calavicci born? 'Twenty-nine? Maybe 1930?"

" 'Thirty-four," Nick said before he could think better of it. "June 15, 1934."

All four officers turned to look at him. "That's so, corporal?" asked Fischer.

"Yes… yes, sir," Nick said, stammering a little. He should have kept his mouth shut. He had no place butting into their conversation.

"You're something of an expert on Calavicci?" the Marine captain asked.

"Everybody knows something about him, sir. He's famous." Nick closed the book and slid it out of sight.

"Yeah, he's famous," Fischer muttered.

"War hero," said Montgomery.

"Astronaut," added Martins.

"_Drunk_," said Bolton pointedly.

"He isn't!" protested Nick, forgetting all about the deference due to officers. "Captain Calavicci isn't a drunk!"

"Oh, yeah?" said Bolton. "Lemme tell you something, corporal. He doesn't go through a single day sober. Every time he heads into town, he comes back with liquor. You've seen him with red eyes. You ever got close enough to smell his breath?"

"He isn't a drunk!" Nick repeated stubbornly. "Sir," he added.

"You're living in a dream world, mister," Bolton informed him. "What's Calavicci to you, anyway?"

"He's… he's my commanding officer, and he's a man who's done more for his country than any of us ever will!" Nick said, squaring his shoulders in defiance. "I'm tired of the rumors that go around about him! He's not a drunk and he's not a failure and he's not cheating on his wife. He's _not_!"

"Three weeks ago he spent the whole night in his office," said Montgomery. "Next morning Miss Pharris found him passed out over his desk with an empty bottle of vodka next to him."

"I heard bourbon," said Bolton.

"It was whiskey," Martins corrected wearily. "And he left the next day to attend his father-in-law's funeral. That doesn't mean he's an alcoholic."

"Besides," said Fischer; "he's not cheating on his wife. Jean Talarski from HR told Major Benteen that she heard that Maxine's definitely cheating on him."

"Courtney Sayers in Aboveground Development told me the same thing," Montgomery said. "Only she heard it from her boss. Calavicci came to bare his soul."

"I didn't know war heroes had souls," Bolton snickered. "Thought they just had pedestals."

"Calavicci's losing his," commented Fisher. "And I don't think that's all he's going to lose by the time he's through."

"I give the marriage another month," Bolton said. "Either he's cheating on her, or she's cheating on him—"

"She's not cheating on him!" Martins howled. "For crying out loud, Maxine's a great woman. She wouldn't—"

"_Who_ wouldn't?" Bolton corrected. "She's hardly out of high school. He's the wrong side of fifty—"

"Fifty this summer," Fischer interjected, nodding in Nick's direction.

"Fine. He's forty-nine. He's a drinker. He's short, he's obsessed with work, I heard he's been having trouble sleeping, and besides that he was a POW in 'Nam," Bolton finished.

There was a pause. All eyes went to Martins. He was the oldest in the group, and as far as Nick new the only one who had been involved in that conflict. Martins sighed. "What the hell does that have to do with anything, Jack?" he asked.

"Well, we all know what they did to our boys over there," said Bolton. "He can't exactly have a gorgeous body, now can he?" There was no response, but no one was making eye contact anymore. "I'm just saying that it would be perfectly natural for a beautiful woman like Maxine to want to look for somebody a little more in her league. You know: maybe someone who's actually playing the same sport? Sober?"

"Stop it!" Nick cried, springing to his feet. He didn't care that they were officers. He didn't care that he had no right to be in this room, much less butting into their conversation. They were slandering Captain Calavicci, and he couldn't take it anymore. "Stop it! He's not a drunk and he's certainly not cheating on his wife! Leave him alone, damn it! Just leave him alone! He's twice the man any of you are—he's more man than all of you put together, and he wouldn't do that! He wouldn't cheat on her, and she isn't cheating on him either! And he's _not_—"

"Corporal!" Marine Captain Fischer barked brusquely.

Nick snapped instinctively to attention, his heart hammering in his chest. He had really done it this time. He waited for the consequences.

"Another outburst like that, mister, and you're on report," Fischer said. "Now go take a walk and cool down."

"Sir, yes, sir," Nick responded. He retrieved his book and fled, but it was with some pride that he noticed as he went that the four men at least had the good graces to look ashamed.

Captain Calavicci _wasn't_ a womanizing drunk.

He just _wasn't_.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Al trudged up the corridor towards his suite. The weight of the world seemed to rest on his shoulders, he thought, not even sparing a flinch for the cliché. He was so sick of budgets and annual reports, and he was dreading January's pilgrimage to DC, there to try to justify another mediocre year and to beg for the funding to make it through another. It all seemed so futile.

All day he had been struggling with unwanted thoughts. Old instincts that he had thought were long overcome were inexplicably resurfacing. Showering this morning, he had tilted his head to drink from the spray of cool water. The sound of Eulalie's typewriter had seemed to hollow out and magnify into the sharp report of distant gunfire. The breeze from an overzealous air duct had become the jungle wind. During a trip down to the cafeteria to doctor a cup of coffee and play around with a plate of food that actually held no appeal, he had slipped a hunk of bread into his pocket, only to discover it four hours later when he went digging for his lighter. Sudden sounds were making him jumpy. The broad muscles in his back ached as if he had spent the day squatting in the tiger cage, rather than hunched over his desk. Everything was just a little too close to the surface today, and even the whiskey wasn't helping as much as it should.

To make matters worse, tonight he had to go to Maxine's damned Thanksgiving potluck, and play the part of the cheerful boss, when all he really wanted to do was empty a bottle of vodka and pass out for a few brief hours of peace.

The sound of laughter penetrated the door even before Al had it open. He stepped into a hot and humid room that reeked of roasting fowl.

"What the hell…" he muttered, scrubbing at his forehead and blinking to clear his vision. Maybe he had had a little more to drink than he had thought, because his senses didn't balance as quickly as they should. "Max?"

"Over here!" she laughed sunnily, turning away from the open oven and waving. There was another woman with her, and Al had to fight the fog taking hold of his brain before he recognized her.

"Eulie?" he said.

His secretary smiled. "Hello again, Captain!" she said.

"She's helping me," Max explained, nodding at the two roasters crowded into the compact space. "I've never made turkey before."

"You're making turkey?" Al asked. He closed the door and leaned heavily against it.

"Can't have Thanksgiving without turkey," Eulalie said.

"I thought it was a potluck," Al mumbled. His thoughts were already drifting to the bathroom cabinet. He thought maybe there was some vodka in there. He wasn't so sure he'd care if there wasn't. He _knew_ there was a jug of cheap gin. The hot, damp air was making his clothing cling to his body in an all-too-familiar way.

"It is," Maxine said; "but somebody has to bring the turkey!"

"Right." Al nodded mechanically. "Good for you."

He made it as far as the bathroom door before Maxine reached him. Eulie, bless her heart, was making herself busy basting the birds, and couldn't see them.

"Al?" Max whispered, gripping his arm with gentle concern.

Her fingers dug into an old scar. Terror coursed through him, and he would have sworn that he could feel the hot iron manacles.

"Are you okay?" she asked. She touched his face tenderly, stroking the unshaven cheek.

To Al, it was the emaciated claw of a fellow prisoner: grimy and trembling, the ragged and broken nails grazing his skin. It spoke of desperation—another human being desperately begging him for hope and reassurance that he couldn't offer. Al felt a thrill of despair, and the deep self-loathing that came with failure.

"I'm fine," he said.

"You don't look fine," she said, and her hand moved to his curls.

He tensed. She would drag him from the cage by his hair, hauling him across the clearing for some new game of torture…

"I'm not," he admitted. "I'm tired. I won't be going tonight."

There was hurt in her eyes, but he couldn't see it. His mind was muddled by memories of Vietnam, and his thoughts were trying desperately to focus on the gin under the sink—gin that he could have as soon as he got away from her and closed the bathroom door.

"You won't?" she asked. "Not even for a little while?"

"No," Al said leadenly.

She nodded understandingly. "Okay," she said, almost keeping the disappointment from her voice. "I'll bring you some leftovers. You get some sleep. You'll feel better in the morning."

This probably wasn't true. Mornings were almost the worst, after black nightmare-riddled midnights. Still, Al nodded. Maxine released her hold on him, and he moved into the bathroom, closing the door with such haste that he almost clipped her toes with it.

Under the sink…

He reached the bottle in record time.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Though the Starbright Social Action Committee had always been there to organize events and impart some sense of community to the secret project, by the end of this November night everyone was in agreement that there were better ways of doing things. Maxine Calavicci, their new Recreational Coordinator, had done an excellent job of dispensing her duties. The gymnasium had been transformed into an admirable ballroom. The meal was wonderful—the variety of dishes had been carefully orchestrated, and there was none of the usual imbalance that came with a potluck. The music was great, the punch was plentiful, and everyone had a wonderful time.

The popular young Mrs. Calavicci circulated the room. She was wearing a very pretty dress that showed off her athletic figure perfectly. She had smiles and pleasant words for everyone. She was a natural: born to preside over social events. Everyone liked her: those who didn't owe her a debt of gratitude for the intramurals that were such a pleasant diversion were taken by her girlish charm, and even the most staid and stolid scientists (Doctor Eleese's name came to mind) were won over by her interest in their subjects. She was quickly becoming the success at Starbright that the captain's previous wife, Sharon, certainly had not been.

The Thanksgiving party left everyone satisfied, their needs for food, camaraderie, and good cheer amply provided for. Even Daniel Penvenen, who regarded such functions as an unfortunate necessity when one played the part of a "man of the people", got something out of the evening.

Not only had Dan caught up on the latest gossip about the Project Administrator, but he had also had the chance to plant a few more seeds of malice here and there. Furthermore, he had noticed the captain's absence, and the well-concealed but undoubtedly miserable glances that his child-bride had cast in the direction of his empty chair.


	36. Chapter ThirtyFive

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Commander Bancroft opened the door to the exam room, and smiled warmly. "Mrs. Calavicci!" he said. "I thought our little biology class was set for tomorrow. I hope it's nothing serious?"

"It's not me at all," Maxine admitted. "It's Al."

"Captain Calavicci?" Bancroft closed the door, drew up his stool, and sat.

Max nodded. "I'm scared that he's sick," she confessed. "I don't know what to do."

"Well, ordinarily I'd say have him come to see me," commented the Naval physician; "but since he's not here, I assume you think that that would be a problem."

Maxine sighed. The challenge made her feel vaguely ill. Only her familiarity with her tutor had allowed her to work up the courage to raise this concern in the first place. She had plenty of qualms of her own, without Bancroft throwing others in for her.

"I don't think he'd come," she admitted. "He doesn't like to talk about it. He won't even admit when he feels sick, but lately I've noticed… things."

"What kind of things?" Bancroft asked.

"Well… he's always tired. I mean, I know he works hard, and that is part of it, but he has trouble sleeping, too," she went on. "And he wakes up in the middle of the night to shower."

"Shower?" the doctor echoed.

Max nodded. "Long, cold showers. He spends so much time in the bathroom. It's the first place he goes when he gets back from his office."

"Bowels? Bladder? Vomiting?"

She shook her head helplessly. "I don't know," she said. "He won't tell me. Then there's his hands."

"What about them?" asked Bancroft.

"They shake. Not always, but there are times when he can't even hold a glass because he's shaking so bad. He isn't eating properly, either, and sometimes his eyes get so red…" Max hugged herself with one long arm. "I don't know what's wrong," she breathed. "It's scaring me."

"I imagine it must," Bancroft soothed. "I don't think you need to worry, ma'am. The captain isn't sick."

"But some days he can hardly walk!" Maxine protested. "And he has trouble organizing his thoughts—Al's never had that problem before! He's distracted and he gets confused, and—"

"Maxine." The physician laid a reassuring hand on her arm. "He's not sick. It's the booze. Get him to cut back on the alcohol, and he'll start to get better."

She stared at him. "Alcohol?" she echoed. "But Al doesn't drink!"

Bancroft blinked at her. "You'll forgive me, Mrs. Calavicci, but the captain most certainly—"

"He doesn't, he really doesn't!" she told him. "He did when we met. He was drinking quite a lot then, but after we got married he stopped."

Bancroft shook his head. "He hasn't stopped," he argued. "But he should. There are programs to help—"

"But he _doesn't_ drink!" Maxine repeated emphatically. "He hasn't bought liquor in months! The only alcohol in the house is a bottle of red wine that we use for cooking. I've heard those rumors, too, you know, and they're wrong! I _live_ with him. Wouldn't I know if he was a drinker?"

Commander Bancroft closed his eyes and drew in several slow breaths. When he looked up again, Maxine thought that there was something like regret in his expression.

"I know it seems that way," he said gently, "but in cases of severe dependence the drinker is often secretive about his alcohol consumption. If the captain has started to lie to you about—"

"He's not lying," Max said adamantly. "He doesn't drink. Al wouldn't lie to me."

As soon as those words were out of her moth, Maxine remembered the grotesque telephone conversation with Sharon, Al's ex-wife and her predecessor. She had said something similar, hadn't she? _"You've never caught him in a lie? Fibbing about what he ate, or how much he drank?_" A troubling thought crossed Max's mind. If it had been like that then, when Al had been married to Sharon, who was she to say that it was any different now?

Except that it _was_ different. She wasn't Sharon, and Al _wasn't_ drinking anymore.

"Al wouldn't lie to me," she reiterated with the conviction of a child whose faith in her parents' veracity had not yet been dealt the crippling blow of discovering the true nature of Santa Claus. "He's not drinking. It's something else."

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I can't agree with you," Bancroft said. "I've seen him—"

"No." Maxine shook her head with such force that her hair slapped against her shoulders. "Al wouldn't lie. He's sick. If it's cancer or something…"

The doctor's dark eyes softened. "I don't think he has cancer."

"But if he did… isn't there some kind of checkup that they need every year in the Navy?" she pressed.

"As a matter of fact, yes," he said. "We're all required to have a full physical every year."

"Then you can make Al come in for his!" Maxine said, seeing light at the end of the tunnel. She couldn't imagine that a man who often forgot to eat lunch would be very diligent about keeping his medical records up-to-date.

"I'm afraid not. He's not due again until April, and even then he doesn't come to me."

"But I thought…"

"I'm the Chief Medical Officer here, yes," Bancroft said; "and most of the boys at Starbright come to me. Captain Calavicci is a special case. He has to undergo a rather more thorough workup than most of us."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because he's a vet. All the men who came back out of those camps go in for special assessment. Everyone in three states goes to Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego."

"But surely you get his results," Maxine said. "I mean, aren't you his regular doctor?"

"I see everything but his psych profiles," Bancroft confirmed.

"Well, on his last checkup, was anything—"

He held up a hand to stop her, shaking his head regretfully. "I can't discuss it with you, ma'am. He's entitled to confidentiality." He looked at her solemnly. "this is something that you really need to discuss with your husband, Maxine. But I'll tell you this much: I don't think there's anything wrong with Captain Calavicci that he isn't doing to himself."

She rose angrily. "You're wrong!" she cried. "He's sick and he needs help!"

"The only way he's going to get help is by admitting that he needs it. Whether he's drinking or not. We can't just sedate him and drag him down here for blood work, now can we?"

Max flushed a little. "I guess not," she whispered.

She left the sickbay and wandered off topside. She smiled absently at the handsome young Marine guarding the door—Carter, she thought. Out by the firing range, all was quiet. Maxine perched on a wooden barrier, swinging one slender foot and thinking things over as best she could.

Al wasn't a drinker, so then what was wrong with him?

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

There were bad days. They always started the same way: brutal awakenings in the wee, small hours of the morning, night terrors infused with brutal realism that neither copious quantities of alcohol nor Maxine's willingness to meet his desperate need for nocturnal distraction could banish entirely. Sleep would usually return in the end, but it was a byproduct of inebriation and exhaustion, and no symptom of inner peace. After too few hours the squall of the alarm clock would yank him from the tangible darkness of unconsciousness to the ineffable gloom of the waking world. Fighting a hangover, Al would force himself to shower and shave, baptize his eyes with Visine drops, and ease his aching head with two aspirin and a whiskey chaser. He would have to put on a show of cheerful sobriety for Maxine, who would nag him about his health and beg him to let Bancroft poke, prod and x-ray him. Then there would be an encore performance for Eulalie, and Al could bury himself in paperwork until it was time to return to his room so that the cycle could begin again in the morning.

On the bad days, sounds and smells and sensations would sent him straight back to the hell near Cham Hoi. He would resent the need to ration the one thing that allowed him to function. He would hate his work, and the people around him, and himself most of all.

There were good days, too, though. Days when his mind was fully in the present, and when reality was clearly defined and his hip flask was a friend, not a savior. On the good days, he could shave without cutting himself. Food had flavor. Work had meaning. He could look at himself in the mirror, and smile. He could dress in fun, colorful clothes, and actually feel handsome and dapper, instead of using the bright cloth as a mask to hide his inner misery. On the good days, he could take a little joy in things.

It was true that the bad days came far more often than the good, but it was the good days that gave him the strength to keep on living. The strength to survive just a little longer.

Today was going to be a good day, he promised himself as he ran his hand up and down Maxine's slender back. He nuzzled her hair, and she sighed happily, cuddling closer to him.

"That was great," she whispered.

"Happy birthday," Al told her.

She looked up with a laugh of delight. "You remembered!" she cried.

"Rule number one of a happy marriage: _never_ forget your wife's birthday," Al fibbed. In fact, he _had _forgotten. It was Eulalie who had reminded him yesterday, with her well-timed question regarding his plans for celebrating Maxine's twenty-third.

"That's why you're not hurrying to work?" Max asked.

Al nodded. "I'm taking a day off. I thought we could head into Phoenix if you wanted to."

"Really?" she said eagerly.

"Whatever you want, birthday girl."

Maxine wriggled seductively. "Do we have to go right away?" she queried.

"We could wait a couple hours if you want," Al murmured obligingly. He kissed her mint-flavored fingertip.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The arena was only about two-thirds full, but the crowd was rowdy and enthusiastic. Maxine craned her neck, hoping for a glimpse of the players before they lined up for the jam.

"Hey, watch it!" Al chuckled, leaning out of her way as she moved into his airspace. "You'll spill the popcorn!"

Maxine laughed, too happy to care. "It's bad for my figure!" she said.

"Hon, there's nothing in the world that could hurt _this_ figure," Al told her, curling his arm around her waist.

Below, a double whistle sounded, and the crowd hooted in anticipation as the two teams started to do a lap of the track.

"So which one should I be cheering for?" Al asked.

"The ones in purple are the Eastside Eagles," Maxine said. "Their jammer's name is Wanda Dance. The one wearing the number 2 is their best beater. She's Carrie Meback. Then there's Killa Whale and Dee Plomacy—"

"Those aren't their real names!" protested Al. "No one in their right mind would name their kid Killa Whale!"

"Of course those aren't their real names!" Maxine told him. "But they sound great!"

"That's a matter of opinion," he commented dryly. "What about the team in green?"

"Those are the Jam Tarts," Maxine told him. She didn't get any further into the introduction, because Al began to laugh so hard that he started gagging on his soda. Much chuckling and backslapping later, the Calavicci's had completely missed the first twenty seconds of the round. By the time Maxine had her eyes back on the track, there was nothing to do but start into the screaming and cheering.

The Eastside Eagles won, of course. They were the second-best team in the Arizona league. As Maxine joined the raucous cheering that followed the victory, dimly conscious of Al good-naturedly joining in beside her, she felt stirrings of almost-forgotten enthusiasm. Caught up as she had been in her determination to earn her high school diploma, she had almost forgotten the way she felt about this sport. The rush of watching girls just like her careening around the track at superhuman speeds, the magic of that moment of uncertainty before one jammer took the lead, was something that sang to her soul.

She was going to do it, she decided. She was going to learn to roller-skate, and she was going to qualify for the derby!

She hugged her husband enthusiastically. "Thank you!" she cried, raising her voice over the din around them. "Thank you!"

"Hey, Happy Birthday!" Al shouted back, pecking her cheek.

"Thank you," Maxine whispered. She was thanking him for giving her back her childhood dream, but of course he didn't know that.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The stars were brilliant over the desert as Al carefully downshifted, mindful of Maxine. She had fallen asleep about twenty minutes out of Phoenix, and was leaning against him, her tawny head resting on his shoulder. She had had a good day, and so had he.

Al sighed, content with the moment and yet wistful. If only they could be this happy all the time. He knew that was a ridiculous wish. Nobody could be happy all the time. The good and the bad came to each man in some measure. He had heard that somewhere, or something like it, but he couldn't remember where.

The searchlights on the Starbright walls now illuminated their passage through the night, and Al carefully slid his flask, now almost empty, into his left back pocket. Maxine stirred a little, then exhaled with a soft, cooing sound. Before returning his hand to the wheel, Al reached out to stroke her velvety cheek. His girl, Maxine. Twenty-three today. How time flew.

He thought back to his own twenty-third birthday. Chip had organized one hell of a bush party on a beach ten miles east of Pensacola. Stacker and Plumber and all the guys had been there, and there had been plenty of beer and gorgeous women, but of course young Bingo Calavicci had had eyes for one alone. The beautiful Lieutenant Lisa Sherman, her long and elegant legs displayed to perfection by her black swimsuit, her dark hair glistening in the firelight, her blue eyes dancing…

Al withdrew his hand from Maxine's head. Eight days later, Ensign Calavicci had been detained on murder charges, and Lisa, having offered an alibi for the night of Marcie Riker's murder, had been caught in a head-on collision with a semi. They had identified her by her dog tags: the body was marred beyond recognition.

'_All good things must come to an end!_" the voice taunted. "_One way or another, you lose 'em all! Bye-bye, Lisa. Bye-bye, Beth. Bye-bye, Ruthie. Bye-bye Sharon. Bye-bye, Maxine!_'

"Stop it!" Al hissed under his breath, wondering if he dared to steal another sip of vodka before pulling up to the gate. But no, the barrier was open, and the Marine inside would see him. He didn't have anything to hide, he told himself, but he didn't like to advertise the fact that he liked his liquor, either. Al leaned over and kissed Maxine's sweet-smelling hair, hoping that that would give him enough of an anchor to make it inside.

He pulled up next to the young corporal. "At ease," he chuckled as the boy snapped into a rigid salute. "Good evening…" He caught sight of the name-badge. "Carter."

"Good evening, Captain!" the young man said. "Did you have a good day, sir?"

"A wonderful day, thank you." The spelunking finally had the desired effect, and Carter's first name came to Al. "And yourself, Nick?"

Carter flushed with gratified pride. "Sir, yes, sir," he said.

"Except for sentry duty, of course," volunteered Al with a knowing grin.

"Oh, I wouldn't—"

"I know you wouldn't," Al said. "And it does you credit that you won't complain, but this isn't the most exciting job you could be doing."

"I don't mind," Carter said. "Sir," he added hastily.

"You don't need to be so formal," Al told him. "Do you want to see my ID?"

"Oh, no, no, sir, certainly not," Nick stammered. His eyes flitted to Maxine. "I—I heard it was Mrs. Calavicci's birthday today, sir."

"That's right," Al said, a little amused by the attempt at small talk.

"I'd like to wish her… many happy returns," the corporal said.

Al nodded. "Thank you. I'll tell her. You take care, Nick. You're a credit to the service."

The boy saluted again. "Sir, thank you, sir," he said.

Al grinned and taxied carefully through the second gate. It had been a long time since anyone had looked at him with that kind of bizarre, unbridled admiration. It was a little disconcerting… but gratifying as well.

Yes, he thought. If only more days could be good days.


	37. Chapter ThirtySix

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Maxine had never visited the District of Columbia before. This revelation had scandalized Al to no end.

"You've lived in half the states in the Union!" he had exclaimed. "You've never been to _Washington_?"

That had settled the matter. Paperwork was set in motion by Dan Penvenen, requisition forms were filed, the pilot of the little four-seater in which they would fly out was informed, and bags were packed. Mrs Calavicci was going to visit the Capitol.

The fog was thick when they touched down on a Pentagon tarmac. Two Naval Petty Officers were waiting with a car when they arrived, and they were whisked off to a luxury hotel within walking distance of the National Mall. Maxine wanted to explore the city, but Al had to get his papers in order for the morning's funding hearings. She spent most of the next day in the hotel's pool with its en suite gym. The day after that was Saturday, and the Committee had the weekend off. There was, however, no rest for the wicked.

By the time Maxine awoke, Al was already bent over some other file, his shoulders rounded with unmistakable habit: he was used to stooping. Maxine cleared her throat. He didn't even move, much less turn or speak to her. Pursing her lips a little, Maxine wriggled out of bed and moved into the luxurious bathroom. She fixed herself a hot tub and luxuriated in the water, wiggling her toes against the faucet as she thought about the last few weeks.

Christmas had been largely a nonevent in the Calavicci household. Al had spent most of the holiday sequestered in his office doing exactly what he was doing now. He had emerged once in a while with red eyes and an unsteady gait. After organizing a dance, a special lunch and a couple of caroling events in the week leading up to Christmas, Maxine had had very little to do in the week before New Year's. Opting to take a break from her studies, she had used the free time to work on her cooking, and to practice her skating. The former garnered little comment from Al, who when he ate at all these days did so with a strange, almost mechanical, indifference. The latter was decidedly more difficult without her husband to spot for her, and Maxine had the bruises to prove it.

All things considered, it had been a good holiday. The last ten years had taught Max to expect little of Christmas. A yuletide free from seasonal hangovers, pot headaches, squabbling neighbors and constant fretting about the January bills and how on earth she was going to pay the next month's rent were the only things she had hoped for. For all his aloofness and his obsessive dedication to his work, Al had delivered all of that. He had also furnished her with an assortment of pretty presents: a spandex cover for her roller-skating helmet, the latest Star Trek novel, a box of costly French truffles, a little plastic Chewbacca figurine, and a ruby-studded tennis bracelet that Al probably couldn't quite afford.

With lodging and utilities provided by the Project, Max couldn't see where all the money went, but Al didn't have nearly as much disposable income as she did. His account always hovered near empty, and every month there were deductions. Eight hundred went to his second wife, four hundred and fifty to Sharon. He always tried to send a check to Ruthie, which Maxine _really _didn't understand. Then there were the never-ending payments onto his VISA card, which Max had hardly ever seen him use. How he had acquired a debt load like the one he was carrying, she simply could not imagine, but as long as he was handling it, it was really none of her business. She herself had more extra cash now than she had ever had, and she was more than happy to pay for the groceries and keep the Buick supplied with fuel—virtually their only living expenses.

She smirked a little, wryly, and slid back so that the water covered her lips. A slow exhale produced a lively crop of bubbles above her breastbone. Even in the newfound security born of her government paycheck, she just couldn't get through January without wondering about money. Old habits…

Al didn't look up from the table that was serving as a desk, even when Maxine closed thee bathroom door with a pointed _bang_. He was showing all the signs of spending the balance of the day with his folios and budget summaries. Max dressed quickly in a pair of skin-tight blue jeans and her lime green sweater, the one with the fancy cable knit. She loved it, but hadn't had much occasion to wear it in Arizona. The necessity of finding coordinating jewelry brought her close to Al. He didn't seem to notice her as she slipped electric-blue hoops into her ears and fastened a string of chunky beads about her throat. She put on her shoes and dug out her coat, and still he didn't look up. She had her hand on the doorknob when he turned in his chair.

"Are you ready?" he asked abruptly.

Max balked a little in sheer surprise. "Ready?" she echoed.

"We're going shopping," Al said, throwing down his pen and going for his leather jacket.

"Why?" Max queried, now beyond confused. He was changing gears too quickly: she had been resigned to a day of exploring the National Mall, wandering from monument to monument by herself. Now Al wanted to go shopping instead?

"Reception tonight," he said obliquely. At her blank look he paused to elucidate. "I've got my dress blues—gives the civilians something to gawk at—but you don't have anything appropriate. You need an evening gown.

She laughed. "For one night? Al, that's silly…"

"Of course it's silly," he said, hustling her unceremoniously into the corridor and locking the door behind them as if he were afraid that the paperwork would reach out and grab him if he didn't make a quick escape. "It's absurd. It's ridiculous. It's politics."

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Why the hell did he put women he liked through crap like this? Al wondered as he watched Max take in the details of the foyer. Her shoulders were squared with an affected confidence belied by her wide-eyed and anxious expression. Her long-legged, slender figure was set off to perfection by the blue gown with its fashionably elongated waist festooned with an equally _en mode_ satin flower. The sleeves were enormous puffs of gathered finery, and the full, flaring skirt—despite the modernity of the rest of the ensemble—reminded Al of the bell-shaped frocks that Beth had loved to wear…

An unpleasant pang of discontentment rippled beneath the bars of military accolades, and Al forced himself, almost angrily, to focus on Maxine again. She wore long opera gloves one shade lighter than her dress and the look was completed by a string of freshwater pearls and sprigs of babies' breath in her teased and carefully coiled hair. She certainly looked the part: there was nothing in her bearing and appearance that differentiated her from the senators' wives and daughters, the fiancées of young congressman, the beautiful aides and lawyers and political analysts, and the rest of the women who turned out at these events. Al knew better than to stop at appearances, thought. His Max wasn't the wife of a statesman, seasoned by years of attending such functions. She wasn't a socialite, trained from babyhood to excel at the rituals of refined small-talk. She wasn't a university-educated woman, confident in her own intelligence and comfortable in any crowd. Maxine was a girl from Michigan, a product of a public school, who had grown up in a rough neighborhood. Max was one of those kids who knew what it was like to worry about money, one of those people who needed the comfort of knowing the fridge was full, because there had been too many times in the past when it had been utterly bare. She didn't know the first thing about the cocktail-and-concert culture into which he was throwing her tonight.

Al reached out and took her arm, drawing her nearer to him. He was at once gratified and guilt-stricken by the fact that she moved as close to him as she could without imperiling either of their outfits.

"You look gorgeous, you know that?" he murmured.

Max smiled a little. "The uniform's sexy," she offered in return.

Al puffed out his chest a little more and winked playfully at her, hoping to put her back at ease. He navigated carefully towards a waiter with a tray of champagne, skillfully snagging two flutes. Maxine took hers, giggling a little nervously as the bubbles tickled her nose. Al took a draught as long as he dared, and smiled with more substance.

"Stay on my wing," he told her. "You'll protect me from the nastier questions."

He meant the nastier questions about budgets and the nature of Starbright. He was pretty sure that Maxine's presence wouldn't stop the nasty questions of another sort—the questions that sprung from a national curiosity that even more than a decade after the war was still ravenous, insatiable and utterly without mercy.

Congressman Lester Davies, Colorado, zeroed in on the Calaviccis like a precision missile. "Al!" he exclaimed. "And the lovely, _young_ Maxine!" He took her wrist and swooped in to peck her cheek. Max colored awkward, pulling closer to Al. "I wanted to tell you yesterday, but it didn't seem like the time," Davies went on. "Congratulations!"

Al frowned. "I don't follow you," he said blankly. "Listen, Les, have you seen Colonel Ambrose yet tonight? He promised me a few minutes of his—"

"The book!" Les exclaimed. "Congratulations about the book!"

Al smiled tightly. Now he knew what his friend was getting at… or at least, he knew what book he was talking about. "I'd love to chat," he mumbled; "but I promised Maxine I'd introduce her to Caspar—you seen him anywhere?"

"Yeah, he's over by the patio doors," Davies said; "but I really wanted to talk to you about—"

Al was gone before his fellow repatriate could finish that thought. As he strode across the room, Maxine tugged at his arm.

"Caspar? Caspar Weinberger?" she gasped anxiously. "The Secretary of Defense?"

"No, the Friendly Ghost," Al hissed in annoyance. "Of course the Secretary of Defense. Who else?"

Maxine stopped walking, forcing Al to turn and look at her. Her eyes were enormous with anxiety. "I couldn't… please, I wouldn't know what to say to him…"

Al grinned. "Star-struck, are you?" he teased. "You think he's a bigwig, the vice-president is right over there." He pointed at the tall, tuxedoed Republican who was conversing animatedly with a pair of Mississippi senators.

Maxine's jaw slackened. "Oh, you wouldn't…"

Al scanned the room for more ammunition. "There she is! In the green dress." He waited for the moment of recognition.

"Nancy Reagan?" Max gasped. "But that means…"

"Ronald should be around here somewhere, yeah," Al agreed. "We could find him if you like…"

"No, Al, _please_!" she cried, clinging desperately to his arm.

Realizing abruptly that this anxiety was all too real, Al hushed her, stroking her satin waist. "Ssh, I'm just teasing," he soothed. "I won't even introduce you to Caspar if you don't want me to. But you don't have to worry so much, you know. He's a great guy. They're all great guys."

Max gave him a skeptical look.

"Well, except the First Lady, of course," Al amended. "Sure you don't want to meet Caspar?"

"I'm sure," Max told him. "I wouldn't know what to say."

"Same things you'd say to Les. Compliment him on his tie, tell him how much you like Washington—"

"I haven't _seen_ Washington!" she protested.

"So tell him how much you hate it. Tell him you're a beautiful desert flower wilting in his swamp. It's just like any small talk." Al grinned reassuringly. "I just wanted to get away from Les," he said. "You don't need to meet the Secretary of Defense."

Maxine fixed him with a frighteningly intelligent look. "Why did you want to get away from Congressman Davies?" she asked. "I thought you two were friends. I thought you were in Vietnam together."

A cloud passed over Al's heart. "We were," he murmured softly. "That's the problem."

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

In the end, it wasn't from Les that Al heard the news. At twenty minutes to midnight, Al left Maxine chatting happily with a couple of young women who had also been forced to attend—congressmen's daughters, probably—and slipped out onto the patio for a cigar. As the evening had progressed and his wife had grown more at ease with her surroundings, Al had found himself becoming progressively tenser. Under the pristine, precise lines of his dress coat, he was sheathed in a thin sheen of cold sweat. His head hurt, and his stomach felt strange, and he could hardly wait until he could make an exit.

At least he didn't need to worry about sneaking drinks. If there was one place you didn't stand out if you had a glass in your hand, it was a Washington schmooze festival. He plucked the cigar from his lips just long enough to knock back half the martini in his hand. Al let his tired eyes rest on the garden of the DC mansion hosting the night's event. Above the hydrangea hedge and the glittering of the city, the waxing moon glowed. It was almost full: three or four days to go.

"Bright tonight, isn't she?" a twanging Texan voice inquired. Knowing that the comment wasn't meant for him, Al drew in a lungful of fragrant smoke and exhaled slowly. "I said bright tonight, isn't she, Commander?"

There was something familiar in the pitch and cadence of the voice. Against his better judgment, Al turned. A man in Air Force dress stood ten feet away, his face crinkled into a warm smile.

"Clem?" Al exclaimed. "Clem, how've you been?"

He set down the martini on one of the tables, and a moment later they were thumping each other on the back. It had been almost seven years since they had last seen each other. Eight-five months since they had circled that satellite together on the last of the Apollo missions. Al had been the Mission Commander. Clem Jacobs had piloted the Command Module.

As they pulled out of the embrace of camaraderie, Clem shrugged. "Good, I guess," he said. "I'm a Colonel now. See you've made Captain."

Al shrugged. "Guess that's as far as I'll go," he said. "How's the wife?"

"Fine, just fine," said Clem. There was a brief, awkward pause. "I hear you married again."

Clem had known Al back when he had been married to… to… what's-her-name. The Hungarian. The Naval officer shrugged a little. "Coupla times," he mumbled, fidgeting with his cigarette. "Maxine, she's a great kid. She's…"

"I saw you come in with her," Clem said mildly, letting him off the hook. "She's a beauty. In there talking to Winona right now."

"Winona?" Al said haltingly. "Oh, your daughter. Right." It was weird to think of an old friend with grown-up children. "She'll be in college now, huh?"

Clem smiled proudly. "Wants to be an engineer," he said. "Smart as a whip. Takes after her mother."

Another pause. What did you say to someone who had saved your life in space—and who you hadn't had contact with for half a decade? Al went with the obvious. "Are you still with NASA?" he asked.

"Yeah. Research and Development. We've got quite the team. I'm in town to meet with applicants for our quantum physics department. Turns out qualified scientists are mighty thin on the ground. Only have two on the whole eastern seaboard." He fumbled with the wings above his breast pocket. "Say, Al, I wanted to congratulate you," he ventured.

Al frowned. Davies had said the same thing. "Congratulate me for what?" he asked in confusion.

"Well, the book, of course!" Jacobs said. "I know it wasn't something we ever talked about—I think it made a lot of us uncomfortable that you had that kind of service record—but I want you to know I'm proud to know you."

The laugh was uncomfortable and strained. "Look, Clem, that book's a load of—"

"You haven't heard?" Jacobs exclaimed. "I would've expected the press to be all over you. They certainly played it up while you were on Apollo."

Al stopped. "What the hell?"

"It's up for a Pulitzer. Didn't you hear?"

There was a moment of blissful numbness before this statement sunk in, and Al's innards contracted into a writhing mass of anxiety. "You're kidding," he managed to choke out.

"Nope. General Non-Fiction, I think." Clem studied his one-time comrade's expression in the light filtering through the French doors. "It's great news—isn't it?"

"I didn't write that book," Al said, slowly and carefully. He reached for the martini and drained it, then focused on his cigar. "I had nothing to do with that book."

He didn't want to think that Bobby, the man he had escaped Hell with, would have sold the story of their years in the depths of the jungles of Vietnam to some reporter, but that seemed to be exactly what had happened. The damned book, cursed with the melodramatic title The Men Left Behind, had first been sprung on him two years ago in the cafeteria at Wickenburg General Hospital, while Stevie was under the knife for the appendectomy that had led to his cancer diagnosis. Since then, it had stalwartly refused to go away. Now it was up for a Pulitzer?"

Hang on… "I thought books were only eligible in the year they were published," Al said.

"I think you're thinking of the Oscars," Jacobs said. "Anyway, it's definitely been nominated."

Al closed his eyes, and opened them again almost immediately, because on the inside of his eyelids was etched a memory of a blisteringly hot summer day, when the tigers were sleeping and the flies were prowling, and the sadistic VC guerilla who loved to play with fire had Lieutenant Calavicci and Captain White staked out for a little one-on-one attention in the clearing outside the village…

"How 'bout that," Al rasped. "Been nice talking to you, Clem. I'd better… you know… call it a night…"

And he walked away, anxious to find a waiter with a convenient tray full of potables, only dimly aware that he was leaving yet another alienated friend in his wake.


	38. Chapter ThirtySeven

Note: I wholeheartedly recommend F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, discussed and to a lesser extent quoted, in this chapter. Read The Great Gatsby. Do it. Please.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

It was Friday afternoon, and Maxine was sick to death of the confines of the subterranean compound. She gathered up her notebook, a good pen, and Al's well-loved copy of The Great Gatsby and left her office in search of some sunshine. She settled on the carefully irrigated lawn near the daycare playground, shaded by one of the palm trees. It was a huge improvement on the stuffy quarters below-ground, and she found it much easier to focus on her work up here.

Indeed, she was so absorbed in the book that she didn't notice the young man until he spoke.

"Gatsby, huh?" he said timidly. "Do you like it?"

Maxine looked up in surprise. He was sitting a couple of yards away, watching her with pleasant eyes. His hair was cropped very short, and he was wearing blue jeans and a brightly printed shirt. Max smiled.

"Hello," she said. "Yes, I guess I like it."

"I love it. It's…" He stopped and flushed. "I'm sorry that I interrupted you, Mrs. Calavicci. I—"

Max laughed. "Corporal Carter!" she said. "I didn't recognize you out of uniform!"

His color deepened. "You can call me Nick, ma'am," he said.

"Only if you call me Maxine," she countered. Then something occurred to her. "You've read The Great Gatsby?"

He nodded. "I wrote a term paper on it in college," he said. "One of my favorites."

Max gnawed her lip thoughtfully. "Listen, Nick, have you had a lot of experience with English?"

He shrugged. "I was majoring in it," he said. "But then my brother got sick, and I enlisted to help pay for his treatment. I was going to go back to school when this duty placement came along."

"How's your brother? Is he better?" Max queried.

A shadow clouded the young man's eyes. "No, ma'a—Maxine," he said. "He died a year and a half ago. Thyroid cancer."

Maxine felt a pang of empathy. "I'm so sorry," she said.

Nick shook his head. "No, it was… it was better that way. He was in a lot of pain."

Max moved closer and put her hand on his arm. "That makes it easier for him," she said. "Not necessarily for you."

"Well…" He tried to smile. "I'm a lot happier now that I'm here."

"You like Starbright, then," Max clarified. "From what you said about it keeping you from going back to school, I thought…" She gestured vaguely.

"Oh, no, I was so honored to be offered the post!" Nick said. "Captain Calavicci—your husband—he's a great man. A true American hero."

"That's what I hear," Max agreed. "I was just a kid when he landed on the moon. I remember my whole neighborhood watched the Christmas Eve broadcast, and—" It was her turn to flush and falter awkwardly. She didn't like to point out how much younger than Al she was.

"I remember when the lunar module failed," Nick said, enthusiastically filling the silence. "They couldn't couple with the command module, so Captain Calavicci—he was a commander then—decided to—but listen to me, telling you what your own husband did! I don't mean to be… well…" He glanced down at the grass, and in the process seemed to light upon the book in her hand. "How far into it are you?"

It took Maxine a moment to catch onto the change in subject. "Oh, Gatsby…" she said. "It's actually the second time I've read it. The scene with Owl Eyes in the library."

" '_They're real_,' " Nick said breathlessly, and Max was momentarily thrown again, until she realized that he was quoting the dialogue. " '_They're real_.' "

"Right," Max said. "I think Owl Eyes is a whatchamacallit, a foil for Gatsby, you know. Because he's expecting to find fake books, and they're real, but Gatsby expects to find real happiness and it's fake."

She waited breathlessly for a response. It was an idea she had been working on for weeks, and she'd been dying to have someone to bounce it off of. She had been desperate to find out if she was on the right track, and she had a feeling that she was about to have an answer.

"Gatsby's not just looking for happiness," Nick said. "He's looking for the American Dream, and that's an illusion, too, like a book made of cardboard! It's perfect: he looks for truth, and finds betrayal, while Owl Eyes looks for betrayal and finds truth!"

Max was briefly stricken silent. "Really?" she blurted out. "You're not just being polite?"

"No, you're really right! I never thought of it that way!" The young Marine's face was alight with excitement. "It's kind of tragic, isn't it? Owl Eyes expects the worst, and doesn't find it. Gatsby hopes for the best and finds the worst. Of course, the worst of all would probably be to expect betrayal and find it too."

Maxine drew her knees up to her chest and nodded. "Yes, I think that would be worst," she said.

"Of course," Nick added; "the books are a symbol for Gatsby, too."

"They are?" Max wondered reflexively. He nodded, but didn't answer, and a moment later she understood. "Because Gatsby and Daisy and Jordan and Tom and—" She smiled playfully. "—and _Nick_ all look the same, like covers of books. They look rich and sophisticated, but Daisy and the others are faked books: they're shallow and empty, and you can't trust them. Gatsby isn't like that. Even though he looks the same as the others, he's real, and trustworthy. We expect him to be shallow, because all the others are, but he isn't. He's real."

Nick grinned and nodded. "Exactly," he said. Then he rubbed the back of his neck with a satiated sigh. "It's been a long time since I've talked to anyone about books," he confessed.

The words were out before Max could have second thoughts. "Would you grade my papers?" she asked.

His brows knit swiftly together. "Papers?"

"I need someone to tell me how I'm doing," Max explained. "I—I'm trying to improve." She closed her eyes, praying that he wouldn't question her motives.

He didn't. "I'd be glad to!" Nick promised. "We can both write a paper, and grade each other's!"

Max grinned in sheer relief. He thought it was all for fun! "That would be great!" she exclaimed happily. "Thanks!"

"My pleasure," Nick told her warmly. "Hey, what do you think about Goldstein?"

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Even for Arizona, Saturday was unseasonably warm. Celestina had opened the door and cracked the small windows so that the little trailer could air. She and Maxine were washing the dishes, while Stevie sat on the shelf-bed, playing halfheartedly with his alphabet magnets. Al had pulled up a chair close to the bed, and was trying to rest his aching back: too many hours hunched over a desk were resurrecting old pains.

" 'M' for Mama," Stevie said lethargically, holding up the letter.

"And Maxine," Al added, turning to wink at his wife.

" 'M' for Macktheen," Stevie said.

Max sighed a little and came over to sit on the edge of the bed. "Maxine," she corrected. "Can you say "Maxine"?"

"Macktheen," the boy echoed.

"He can't do it, hon," Al advised Max. "Leave him alone."

"Don't be silly!" Max said indignantly. "Of course he can! Come on, Stevie. Say 'Maxine'."

Al rolled his eyes and got to his feet, taking the tea towel from Max. He joined Celestina by the small sink. Behind him, Stevie again tried, and failed, to pronounce the younger woman's name correctly.

"Maxine, Stevie," she said. "Mack-ss-ss-ss-ss-seen. Like a snake."

Stevie cocked his head to one side. "A thnake?" he asked.

"That's right," Max told him. Al was glad that she kept her voice light and playful. He would have to call the session off if she started to become frustrated. Al knew from experience how discouraging such efforts could be. He also knew the damage one could do to the sweet, fragile heart of a child like Stevie by snapping thoughtlessly at him.

Max went on, wiggling her arm in imitation of a serpent. "A snake goes ss-ss-ss-ss! Can you make a snake sound?"

"Th-th-th-th-th," Stevie lisped.

Maxine clapped. "That's right!" she cheered. "Ss-ss-ss-snake!"

"Th-th-th-thnake!"

"Put your tongue behind your teeth," Max told him, demonstrating dramatically.

"He can't do that," Al said, _sotto voce_. Downs babies had protruding tongues that didn't take well to being crammed into small mouths.

"That's right! Behind your teeth!" Max exclaimed, eliciting a happy cheer from Stevie. "Now put your tongue behind your teeth and say ss-ss-ss-snake!"

"Th-th-ss-thnake!" Stevie repeated.

Al blinked a little, and turned towards Celestina, who had also heard the breakthrough. She raised her eyebrows a little, and then turned back to the dishes.

"Again!" Max urged.

"Ss-ss-ss-thnake!" Stevie said.

"Good!" Max said. "What about Max-ss-ss-sseen?"

"Max-th-th-theen," Stevie said. This didn't sound right to him, for he shook his head so that his curls bobbed, and tried it again without prompting. "Max-th-theen. Max-ss-theen. Max-ss-ss-seen. Maxseen! Maxine!"

Max crowed in delight, clapping her hands excitedly. "There!" she said. "I knew you could do it. Say it again!"

Stevie's nose wrinkled with intense concentration. "Max-ine," he said slowly. A grin broke out across his face. "Maxine! Maxine!"

He tossed aside the tray of magnets and threw his arms around her neck. "Maxine!" he repeated.

"That's right!" Max laughed, kissing his ear as she hugged him. "I _knew _you could say it! I knew he could say it," she added, looking pointedly at Al.

Al was too busy trying to hide the emotions that the sight of his little guy and his kid Max hugging like this prompted. He almost wanted to cry for joy at the innocent happiness. Maxine rocked Stevie a little, and then turned him to settle in her lap.

"What do you think?" she asked. "Should we read a story?"

"Thtory?" Stevie asked. He frowned. "Th-ss-ss-story?"

Maxine's triumphant smile was absolutely radiant. "All right," she said, reaching for the cast-off Dr. Seuss volume that Al had read to the boy earlier. She shifted her weight into a more comfortable position, and curled one arm around Stevie's waist to tug him after her.

The reactions happened simultaneously. Maxine's smile vanished into a puzzled frown, and Esteban yelped in pain. Hearing the sound of her child's distress, Celestina turned from the sink.

"Esteban?" she said.

Al's eyes were focused on Maxine, who had her left hand splayed over the boy's abdomen. "Max?" he said.

"It's hard," Maxine said, feeling Stevie's stomach pointedly. "His tummy's rock hard…"

Stevie, his discomfort forgotten, was trying to reach over her arm to open the book. Celestina took his wrist in one hand, and with the other, emulated Maxine's gentle prodding.

"Sí," she said. "Sí, it is hard. But it has been so for some time now. Many days. He not eat enough: he lose weight."

"Hang on," Al said. "He's still not eating?"

Maxine's voice became more urgent. "This isn't right, Al!" she said. "Bodybuilders' stomachs aren't this hard."

Al nudged Celestina gently away and put his hand to Stevie's stomach. Max was right, he thought. It did seem too hard. He slipped a hand under the child's shirt. Stevie, thinking it was a game, giggled and tried to tickle Al under the chin.

"You got me, sport!" Al chuckled absentmindedly. His fingers traveled over the child's skin. Under the admittedly too-prominent ribs, his abdomen was strangely firm. Yet as he pressed a little harder, he could feel tender places, too. Then he pressed a little harder still, and Stevie screamed.

"Hurt me!" he cried. "Not fun! Don't hurt me!"

There were tears in the dark eyes, and Al felt sick with contrition. The nausea of dread, however, was stronger.

"Listen, buddy," he said, trying and failing to keep his voice light. "How 'bout we all go for a ride in Maxine's car?"

"I love the car!" Stevie said.

"A ride?" Celestina asked. "A ride to go where?"

Al swallowed tightly. "To the hospital," he said. "I want a doctor to have a look at this."

What he really wanted was a doctor to tell him that it was nothing, but the nagging voice in the back of his head laughed at him.

'_Like that's going to happen_!" it sneered.

Step one was to get Stevie, Celestina and Max into the car, Al decided. Step two was to give them the slip long enough for a quick swallow from his hip flask.


	39. Chapter ThirtyEight

Note: Sorry about the long interval between updates! Life has been—aw, but that's not what we're here for! On with the chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

On a Sunday night, Wickenburg General Hospital was very quiet. In the emergency room, an old man lay reclined on a gurney, a young couple tried to soothe their screaming and obviously feverish baby, and three pale-faced adults clustered around one little boy.

Celestina was seated on the gurney, and Stevie was in her arms. He was blissfully unaware of the anxiety around him, as he poked at the plastic nose and eyes of his stuffed dog. Maxine stood by the hanging blood pressure monitor, arms crossed over her abdomen. Al was pacing restlessly. Three times already he had slipped away from the group to soothe himself a little, but the whiskey wasn't doing its job. He felt jittery and anxious, unusually confined by the curtains drawn around the triage station. He chafed sweaty palms against his pants and exhaled unsteadily.

"Maybe it's his appendix?" Maxine said softly, almost hopefully.

"It's not his appendix!" Al snapped. "He had his damned appendix out two years ago!"

Celestina looked at him, startled by the outburst. Stevie nuzzled his toy's plush snout. "Hothp—ho_sp_ital," he said. "No dogs in the hospital. Only pretend dogs. Only toy dogs allowed in the hospital. Mama?"

"Sí, yes, Esteban?"

"Mama, will we see Jeth? Juh-eh-ss." Stevie's face scrunched itself into a ball with the effort of pronouncing the name correctly.

"I do not know," Celestina said. She turned again to Al. "Señor Calavicci? Will we see Doctor Jess?"

Al scrubbed his face with his hand. "I don't think she works weekends," he mumbled. His frustration was coming to a head again, and he stamped his foot. "Damn it, why are they taking so long?"

Max pushed off the wall and took hold of his arm. "Al, sit down," she said. "You're—"

He threw off her hand. "Leave me alone, damn it!" he growled.

A small hand grabbed his pant leg. Stevie had crawled off of his mother's lap, and was kneeling on the edge of the gurney, looking up with wide, dark eyes.

"Don't be th-ss-ss-sad," he said in concern. "Don't be sad, Misster Al. Jess give me my medicine. I get better."

Al's whole body spasmed with the effort of suppressing his intrinsic response to these reassurances. When he dared to open his mouth, he grinned as nonchalantly as he could. "Sure," he said, ruffling the boy's hair with his hand. "You want to play a game?"

"Yup, yup!" Stevie said eagerly, clapping his hands and then hurrying to retrieve his stuffed toy. "I th-I _sp_y!"

"All right," Al said with affected merriment. He sat down next to the boy. "You go first."

"I spy with my little eye something that ith pretty!" Stevie said.

This time, Al's smile was genuine. The child never had quite gotten the hang of the game. "Hmm," he said. "Is it the curtains?"

"Nope!" Stevie said proudly.

"Is it my shirt?" Al pointed at the bright, geometric pattern on his chest.

"That's silly, not pretty!" Stevie giggled.

Max giggled. Al pretended to take offence. "All right, then," he said. "Is it Mama's hair clip?"

"Mama's what?" Stevie said.

"My barrette, Esteban," Celestina said, pointing to the brightly colored adornment.

"Nope!" Stevie said. "I spy something that is pretty!"

"Hmm… the nurse?" Al tried, earning an exasperated look from his wife. Her expression changed quickly as Stevie giggled, grabbing his foot and rocking before voicing his boredom with Al's poor guesses.

"No, Max-een!" he crowed. "Maxine is pretty!"

Al chuckled and looked at Max, who had turned a dramatic shade of red. "She is, isn't she, sport?" he said.

"Yup, very pretty!" Stevie said. "You're a bad guesser! My turn!"

"All right," Al said. "I spy with my little eye… something that is brown."

Stevie looked around. "Chethter?" he asked, then wrinkled his nose. "Ches-ss-ster," he corrected, holding up the stuffed dog.

"That's right!" Al said. "You're good at this game."

"Good at what game?" The nurse who had passed by a moment earlier now moved into their little area. She was carrying a thick file that Al recognized all too well: Stevie's chemotherapy chart, detailing two years of complicated and arduous medical history.

"I spy!" Stevie said happily. "Hi, I'm Esteban!"

"Nice to meet you, Esteban," the woman said. "I'm Laurene."

"Hi, Laurie," the child said. "Are you gonna poke me?"

She smiled a little, not quite understanding. "Poke you?"

Stevie held out his arm, flexing his wrist downward. "To give me medicine," he said.

"No medicine yet," Laurene said. "I do need to take some blood, though. Is that okay?"

"Okay," Stevie said. He sat still, patient and remarkably composed, as the nurse fastened the rubber tourniquet around his arm and drew two vials of blood. She pressed a cotton swab to the puncture, and Celestina reached out to hold it in place.

"Mrs. Penja?" Laurene asked. "You noted on the admission form that he has abdominal pain…" She stopped, seeing the young mother's bewildered expression.

"Al filled out the form," Maxine offered. Celestina nodded.

The nurse turned. "He doesn't seem to be in pain now," she said. "Did you give him anything?"

"You mean aspirin?" Al asked. "No. He says it hurts when we press on it—his stomach's hard."

"And his last checkup was… five weeks ago. Did Doctor Ananda do a palpitation exam then?"

"I don't…" Al frowned, trying to remember and failing miserably. "I… wouldn't it be in his chart?"

"It isn't," Laurene said. "We'll assume no? Esteban, does your tummy hurt?"

Stevie looked up, head lilting to one side. "Nope!" he said happily. An enormous yawn was followed by three drowsy blinks. "I'm thleepy," he mumbled, leaning against his mother.

Celestina stroked his hair. "Always he is tired," she said.

Laurene nodded. "There's a note here," she said, consulting the form. "Doctor Adams will be with you in about fifteen minutes. We're going to run some labs on the blood, and we'll need a urine sample." She handed a sample cup to Celestina. "I'm afraid from the looks of things this is routine."

"Yeah," Al mumbled. "Yeah, we know the drill."

"If you need anything, just call," Laurene told them. Then she slipped through the break in the curtain.

Impulse overtook common sense, and Al hurried after her. "Wait!" he called.

Laurene was halfway between their cubicle and that of the wailing baby. She turned, and Al trotted forward to close the gap.

"It's the cancer, isn't it?" he asked, scarcely able to force the words over the bastion of terror and out of his mouth. "It's back. He's going to die."

She blinked, exhaling slowly. She had brown eyes, Al noticed. Beautiful, deep hazel-colored eyes—like Beth's…

"Mr. Penja," she said; "I can't diagnose—"

"Calavicci, not Penja!" Al exclaimed, suddenly angry. "For crying out loud, how many times do we have to—" He stopped abruptly, scrubbing his face with his hand. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I… I'm just…"

Laurene smiled gently. "I understand," she said. "You're worried. You have cause to worry. Until Doctor Adams has a look at Esteban, though, there's nothing I can say either way."

"But it could be the cancer," Al whispered.

"It could be," Laurene said gently. "Or it could be a gas bubble, or a hernia, or any one of a hundred other things."

'_It's the cancer!' _the cruel voice taunted. '_He's going to die, and you know it!_'

Al was aware that his hands were shaking. He rammed them into his pockets. "Okay," he said. "Fine. Okay."

He withdrew, scarcely conscious of the red braid that swung through his peripheral vision as the capable lady turned towards the next worried mother on her triage list.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

"All done," said the physician, giving Celestina a paper towel with which to wipe the electrolyte gel from Stevie's stomach. He turned to annotate the chart.

"Well?" Al asked. He and Maxine stood against the wall by the door. Three hours had passed since the first blood samples had been taken, and although the child was still happy, the accompanying adults were growing more frightened and frazzled by the minute. Al felt that if they didn't get an answer soon, he was going to be physically ill.

"We'll just get you cleaned up, little man," Adams said, ignoring Al's question and focusing on the small patient. "Then you can have a little sleep if you want."

" 'Kay," Stevie said. Then he winced and cried out. "Mama! You hurt me!"

Celestina withdrew her hand with a gasp of contrition. "Esteban! I am so sorry. Mama did not mean to do it."

Stevie's eyes flooded with tears. "I want to go home," he whimpered. "I don't like it here. Everybody hurts me. I want Chester. I want Jess. I want to go home."

"Ssh-ssh," Celestina soothed, trying to finish the task at hand without causing any more pain. "Good boy. Such a good boy."

Doctor Adams opened the door and called for the nurse. As she entered, the little boy smiled again. "Hi, Laurie!" he said.

"Hi," she replied. She took the towel from Celestina and drew quick, capable strokes across the child's stomach. "Did the doctor take a picture of your insides?"

Stevie shrugged. "Sticky," he said, scooping up a fingerful of the remaining gel.

"Yes, it's very sticky," Laurene agreed. She took his hand and wiped it, too, then reached for another napkin.

"What did you see?" Al demanded, unwilling to let the physician off the hook. The man was removing his gloves and organizing the contents of his lab coat pocket.

"Mrs. Penja, if I could have a word with you in private?" he said, gesturing at the door.

Celestina frowned. "Only me?" she asked.

"Yes, just for a minute," Adams said. There was a silence before he added, pointedly and a little impatiently; "As soon as possible."

Celestina looked at her son. "It is about Esteban?" she asked.

"Yes," the doctor said. His tone was unmistakably brusque.

Celestina shook her head. "Then Señor Calavicci comes also," she said. "He help me to take care of Esteban. He is my friend."

"You're the boy's mother, ma'am, and I'd rather—"

"No!" Celestina said. "No, Señor Calavicci must come. I do not…" She flushed a little, and looked away. "I do not understand all you say. He helps me."

Adams shot a brief, critical glance at Al. "Fine," he said. "But his daughter stays here."

Al bit his tongue to keep from arguing, took Celestina's hand, and led her out into the hallway. The doctor followed them, closing the door. He studiously ignored Al, focusing on the mother.

"Mrs. Penja," he said; "there are several masses in your son's liver. We can't tell if they're vascular or not, but they definitely shouldn't be there. I'd like to admit him. Doctor Ananda is covering pediatrics tomorrow, and she'll be better able to decide what needs to be done."

"Hang on!" Al said. "There's cancer in his liver?"

"I don't know if it's cancer," Adams snapped. "He's negative for the usual markers, but his enzymes are abnormally high."

"What does that mean?" Al pressed. His heart was hammering against his ribs, and he felt sick with anxiety. The voice in the back of his head was taunting him. The flask in his back pocket was too empty for comfort. Stevie… Stevie was going to die…

He earned himself another annoyed look. Adams took Celestina's arm and tried to turn her in such a way as to shut Al out of the conversation. "We'll get an x-ray now, and run some more blood tests, but it'll be Doctor Ananda who can make the call whether to keep him here or send him to Phoenix."

Celestina shook her head. "Esteban not go to Phoenix," she said firmly.

"He could get a CT scan in Phoenix," Adams said. "Or a biopsy, if that's what he needs."

"He's had all his other biopsies here," Al protested. During the early days of Stevie's leukemia diagnosis, he had disagreed with Celestina's adamant refusal to admit the boy to the Children's Hospital in Phoenix, but he respected her choice. It would be hard for her to visit him, and financially impossible for her to stay with him in the city. As Al had to make so many of the medical decisions regarding the child's care, it seemed only right to accede to the mother when he could.

"His _other biopsies_ were on his bone marrow," Adams told him sharply. "A liver biopsy is much more dangerous, and we don't have technologists trained for it here! Mrs. Penja, if I could please—"

"What's your problem anyway?" Al snapped, having reached the limit of his patience. "Why won't you talk to me? I care about this kid as much as anybody, I'm his medical proxy—"

"Not legally," Adams said. "Legally, his mother is. If you wanted to be so involved in his care, you should have shown an interest in supporting him before he got sick!"

Al stared at him. "What?" he choked out.

"Now shut up and let me do my job!" Adams finished. He turned back to Celestina again. "I don't want you to worry, Mrs. Penja. We haven't got a diagnosis yet. You know that Doctor Ananda is one of the best in her field and—"

"God damn it, what are you saying?" Al shouted. "What the hell do you mean, before he got sick? Why won't you answer my questions?"

"If you can't control yourself, sir, I'll have you banned from the ward," Adams said coldly.

Al felt a wave of uncontrollable choler rising in his throat. He would have taken a swing at the pompous physician in front of him, but a firm hand took hold of his elbow.

"Captain, please," a soft, capable voice intoned. "This isn't the place for this."

Al turned to look at the nurse. He drew in a long, shaky breath. "Are you going to answer my questions?" he asked.

"We need you to fill out the overnight admitting forms," Laurene said, gently pulling him away from the doctor. "Come and have a seat."

She led him to an empty stall and sat him down on the stool next to the vacant gurney. A moment later, and the curtain was whisked around them.

"He won't answer my questions!" Al repeated numbly.

"He doesn't have any answers yet," Laurene said. "We'll keep Esteban overnight, and Doctor Ananda can see him in the morning. If it's cancer—d"

"Liver cancer's fatal!" Al said.

"Primary liver cancer is almost always fatal," Laurene agreed, curling Al's fingers around a pen and tapping the clipboard. "This wouldn't be primary liver cancer. It could be stage two metastases from the leukemia—treatable with aggressive chemotherapy, or surgery, or radiation. It might not even be cancer. Doctor Adams doesn't know yet."

"He won't talk to me," Al argued. He scarcely felt the hand groping for his pulse.

"I'll be right back," Laurene said. "Fill out the form so that we can get Esteban settled upstairs."

Al obeyed almost stupidly. He was halfway through the sheet when the nurse returned, carrying a cup of coffee. He frowned at it in puzzlement.

"Drink up," she instructed. "You're in shock."

Al shook his head. "Styrofoam," he said. "Lousy for the environment."

Laurene laughed a little. "It's all we stock," she said. "It holds the heat better than paper does. Drink it: you'll feel better."

Al took an obedient sip. It was sweet as syrup, and as implied, hot. "Sugar?" he asked.

"Just drink it," she instructed. Then he was alone again.

_Drink it. You'll feel better._ The words echoed in Al's ears. He took another long swallow of the coffee, and then, with a surreptitious glance over his shoulder, took out his flask and added a slug of whiskey. The next draught was more calming. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, and then refocused on the form.

Beyond the curtain, he could hear Maxine's sweet, silvery laugh accompanying Stevie's throaty giggle.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

The door to the semiprivate room where the Penjas and the Calaviccis had spent the night opened, and Doctor Ananda entered. Stevie cried out happily, and slid off of the bed, not bothering to straighten his hospital gown as he ran towards the oncologist with her bright scrubs and tiger puppet.

"Jess! You're back!" he cried.

The physician knelt down to hug him, and Stevie threw his short arms around her neck. Doctor Ananda stood up, swinging him gently onto her hip and carrying him back towards the bed. "How are you doing, buddy?"

"Good, good," Stevie said. Ananda sat down, settling the boy into a more comfortable position on her lap.

"What is it?" Al asked, curling one arm around his abdomen. He had no whiskey left, and the last hour, waiting for the test results, had been absolutely horrific. His head hurt, his limbs were shaking, and the nagging anxiety was now a hair's breadth from total panic. "What's wrong with him?"

Ananda focused gravely upon them, her hand absently plucking the tiger from her pocket and giving it to Stevie, who began to converse quietly with "Cherry".

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Penja, Captain," the oncologist said quietly. "It isn't good news."

Celestina's lower lip began to tremble. Instinctively, Al wrapped an arm around her shoulder. He was only just aware of Maxine's hand coming down on his own shoulder.

The oncologist went on. "Esteban has numerous growths in his liver and gall bladder, possibly vascular. His enzymes are elevated—"

"That ba—the doctor last night said the same thing," Al said. "What the hell does it mean?"

"It's possible that the growths have tapped into his body's blood supply—like an illegal pipe attached to a water main. Vascular growths can feed themselves from the blood. The elevated liver enzymes mean that Esteban's liver is overcompensating for something," Ananda explained. "It's working harder than it should, either because there aren't enough healthy liver cells, or because there's something in his blood that the liver is trying to get rid of."

"And these masses… tumors?" Al asked.

"We don't know," Ananda said. "But I'm afraid that it's likely. Because leukemia is a blood cancer, it's very easy for it to spread, especially to parts of the body that need a lot of blood."

"The cancer has moved?" Celestina asked. "Esteban will need more medicine?"

"Possibly," Ananda said. "First he'll need to go to Phoenix for a CT scan, so that we can get a better idea of how many there are, and how large they are. Then we can consider a biopsy, if the CT scan isn't conclusive."

Celestina shook her head. "Esteban not go to Phoenix," she repeated.

"Damn it, he _has_ to go to Phoenix!" Al cried. Then he screwed his eyes tightly closed. "Celestina, we don't have to admit him if you don't want to, but he needs to go to the city for the tests," he explained more softly. "What then?"

"A lot depends on the results of the tests," Ananda said. "I can't offer a prognosis yet, and we can't decide what course to take. If the tumors are operable, we may be able to remove them. He'll probably need more chemotherapy. If there are no other metastases, we can try to get the cancer under control."

"Then there's hope?" Maxine asked.

The oncologist sighed softly. "It's possible," she said. "A lot depends on the test results. I'll call Sick Kids and book him in for a CT tomorrow morning. Then we can decide if a biopsy is necessary."

Celestina choked back a sob and nodded. "You help Esteban," she said softly. "You help him."

"I'll do my best," the doctor promised. "I have to tell you, though, that the five-year survival rate for stage two metastases to the liver is only twenty-two percent. If the cancer is stage three…"

Al bit his tongue and tried to calm himself. "If it's stage three?" he prompted hoarsely. God, he needed a drink.

Ananda regarded him sadly but with level honesty. "Then the one-year survival is less than fifteen percent," she said softly.

" 'C' 'H' is for Cherry!" Stevie announced happily. " 'C' 'H' is for Cherry, an' Chester, an' cheese, an' chirros, an' chair!"


	40. Chapter ThirtyNine

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Adrian Thorgard was waiting in the cafeteria on Sub-Level Five. He had a lunch date with Donna Eleese, and she was already ten minutes late. Thorgard didn't mind. As the years went by, he found that time became less of a frantic taskmaster, and more of an indolent friend. He had long ago given up on hurrying and worrying. Times like this were made for sitting and thinking.

He had had a letter from his grand-niece this morning. He had more or less raised her while working on Project Cassiopeia in Oregon, taking her to work with him because her mother was trying to finish her degree. Now his little Carrie was living in Boston, and it seemed that she was expecting a baby of her own. She and her husband were busy with their law practice, and she had written to repeat her suggestion that he retire and come to live with them. The unspoken entreaty was clear, and Thorgard had half a mind to accept. After all, he was well past the usual age of retirement, and the prospect of settling into a different life was beginning to hold some appeal. Goodness knows, with a child in the house it wouldn't be a quieter life, but then Thorgard didn't need that.

Ah, well. There was plenty of time to decide. The baby wasn't due for six months yet, and it would be another two or three before Carrie would start to think about ending her maternity leave. More than enough time to groom a successor, and ease slowly out of his responsibilities here. More than enough time to prepare for the end of the world he had lived in for all of his adult life.

There was a sudden lull in the conversation as all eyes turned towards the door. Thorgard followed suit, not at all surprised to see that Donna Eleese had just entered. He smiled and beckoned in greeting.

She turned her eyes on him, her expression uncommonly grave. As she moved to take a seat across from him, the other patrons turned back to their own affairs. "Hey," Donna muttered, curling her hand around the mug of now-lukewarm tea.

"Rough morning?" Thorgard asked sympathetically.

Donna hooked a stray tendril of curling brown hair behind her ear. "You could say that," she said. "I've decided to resign."

"You have," Thorgard said mildly. "Well, that's a big step. I know you've been thinking about it for a long time now. Which offer did you go with?"

"The pharmaceutical company," Donna said. She took a tentative sip of her tea. "I don't think I'm quite ready to go multinational yet."

"It will be quite a different sort of work, I imagine?" Thorgard said. "Biotechnology and nanodrugs."

"Yes."

Her expression was inscrutable. Thorgard stroked his beard thoughtfully. "You'll have to tell Captain Calavicci as soon as possible, of course. You're irreplaceable, and he's going to have a hard time finding an adequate substitute."

Donna's expression darkened almost instantly. "I was in to see him just now," she said tersely.

Thorgard flinched empathetically. "He didn't take the news well?"

Her next words were cold, taught with revulsion and anger. "He was drunk when I got there."

Thorgard tried to keep his reaction to this news out of his eyes. "Before you told him you're leaving. How intoxicated was he?"

"I haven't seen anyone that wasted since the accreditation board visited the English department at Lawrence," Donna spat.

"You've lost me there, my dear," Thorgard said.

"Forget it," she said. "He's drunk, and he's probably drinking more now. I've had it. I can't turn a blind eye to it, and I don't see how anyone else can, either. He's a disgrace to the Project, he's a disgrace to the Navy, and he's a—"

Thorgard reached out and caught her gesticulating hand midair. "For such a beautiful, brilliant young lady, you aren't very forgiving, my dear," he said softly. "How long before you leave us?"

"Sixteen weeks," she replied. "Long enough for a _competent_ administrator to find a replacement. Maybe I'd better tell Prysock."

She moved to get up, but Thorgard outmanoeuvred her, getting to his feet while keeping her in her seat.

"You enjoy your tea, and don't worry about it," he said. "You'll have plenty to do organizing the department before you leave. I'll go and talk to Phillip."

Eleese frowned in puzzlement. "Why?" she asked.

"Because it isn't your problem anymore, dear," Thorgard said. "You're leaving us."

He smiled and patted her smooth cheek fondly, and then left the room, oblivious to her bemused countenance and the curious audience that they had acquired.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

He had to think about it. He had to deal with it.

Al scrubbed his face with his hands and tried to bring reality back into focus.

It meant something, this letter in front of him. The angry woman who had looked at him _that way_, as if he were nothing. Less than nothing. Scum. _Vang_… It meant something, something about Starbright. Something important, but he couldn't remember what. He couldn't remember what he had to do. It was very important and it would be very difficult, and he only had sixteen weeks, so he had to start right away, but he _couldn't remember what he needed to do_!

Another sound of primeval frustration broke free from his throat, and he got to his feet, stumbling towards the bookcase. Behind the encyclopedia… His hands closed on the body of a bottle. It was almost full. He caressed it fondly, groping for his glass. A little bourbon. That would clear his mind. Then he could think properly. All he needed was a little drink…

He was dimly aware of following that line of reasoning already today. He'd drained his flask even before washing his face in the bathroom on the oncology ward at Sick Kids in Phoenix—but he'd needed it! Who wouldn't, after a night on a vinyl-covered waiting-room sofa? They'd had to keep Stevie overnight after the biopsy. Liver biopsies were dangerous, Ananda had said…

Al remembered driving back to Wickenburg, Maxine next to him, silent and tearful, while Celestina sat in the back, Stevie's head cradled in her lap. It would be a week and a half before they had any conclusive results, a week and a half before they could all sit in Jess Ananda's Wickenburg office and hear her outline a treatment protocol, let them know of their options, tell them how long the kid had to live.

More bourbon was called for. Al's legs were starting to feel a little rubbery—but what did you expect when you marched a man through trackless jungle for weeks on end, barefoot and feverish, still suffering the after-effects of ejection and a crass landing in an enemy jungle, and brutal beatings, and introductory interrogations, and… He stumbled to his chair and raised the glass to his lips. He drained it in one long quaff and let his hand fall away. The cup hit the carpet with a soft _thud_, rolling away until it clinked against the base of the filing cabinet. Not even missing a beat, Al took his next swallow straight from the bottle.

He had left Stevie and Celestina at home, driven Max back to the Project. She had had a million questions: he had seen it in her eyes, a million goddamned questions. He'd left her topside, begging him to stop and talk to her, and made his way straight here. Here, to his office, where he was safe. He had privacy here. He had plenty to drink. He had everything he needed.

And then Eleese had come, and… Eleese! He remembered now, and with recollection came the need to take another drink. Eleese had resigned. Sixteen weeks, she had said. Sixteen weeks until he had to find another quantum physicist—where the hell would he find a quantum physicist who could run Sub-Level Omega? Who even understood that stuff? Oh, he could get his head around most of it—anybody could—but the mind needed to make advancements, to extrapolate from the data, to design new tests… where the hell would he find a person like that?

Sixteen weeks. Hardly any time at all.

Or a lifetime. He had spent sixteen weeks at the Hilton. Or was it twenty-four? He couldn't remember anymore. He didn't care. He wanted to forget.

He couldn't forget. He had to take action. He had to find a new quantum physicist. Always loved physics. He'd never been serious about it—a hobby. Electrical engineering, that was his thing. Circuits. Those old computers, bigger than a car…

Useless knowledge now.

That's what he was. Useless. Useless. Just… just useless.

Al snorted a little, making one more futile attempt to clear his head. His gaze focused on the bottle in his hand. That would help, he thought. Just one little sip to help him organize his thoughts.

"Where is he?" a low, familiar voice asked, just outside the door. Eulie was talking now, replying.

Chemistry, Al thought. He had always been good at chemistry. A small, lecherous chuckle rumbled deep in his chest. _Both _kinds of chemistry.

The door popped open, and closed itself almost as swiftly.

"What are you doing, Al?"

He looked up. White hair, and a generous, carefully groomed beard. Glittering, keenly intelligent eyes. White lab coat and a fanciful necktie. Al blinked thrice, trying yet again to dissipate the fog.

"Doc?" he said, his voice slurring thickly. " 'Ow can I help?"

"I was talking to Donna Eleese," Doctor Thorgard said. His voice was coming through a heavy miasma, and Al realized dimly that he could no longer see the edges of the room. "She told me she came here to tell you that she wanted to resign."

" 'Leese," Al agreed. "Where'm I supposed to find another quantum physicist, eh? Not exactly thick on the ground, are they?" He realized that he was holding a bottle of bourbon! He stared at it in surprise. "Good stuff," he commented. "You want a drink?"

In his inebriated state, he couldn't quite process the look of profound disappointment on the older man's face. Nor did he see the descending arm until the bottle was plucked from his grasp.

"You said this wouldn't happen again," Thorgard reminded him quietly. "Now will you admit that you need help?"

"I don't need help!" Al snarled, struggling to his feet and catching himself against the edge of the desk before he could fall to the floor. "I'm fine! I don't need any help! Help Stevie: he's the one who's sick! He's the one who's dying! Help him and leave me alone! Just leave me alone!"

He started towards the bookcase and stumbled. Time-weathered hands that were much stronger than they looked took hold of his wrists before he fell. For a moment Al was grateful, but then he realized that the hands weren't letting go. They had tricked him! They had tricked him again!

You couldn't show fear. If you did, then they would win. The only way that Al had ever been able to mask terror was with defiance and false bravado. He tossed his head like an angered Roman lordling.

"Let go of me!" he cried, trying to pull back.

"Who's Stevie?" his captor demanded. Oh, the question was couched in soft tones, sweetened by a look of genuine concern, but Al Calavicci was nobody's fool! They'd try anything to get you to sell out your buddies, but he wouldn't do it! He wouldn't! Damn it, not this time, he wouldn't! "Al, who's Stevie? Why is he dying?"

A string of obscenities in a tongue he had never really wanted to learn spilled from Al's lips. Then his left foot struck out, and in the moment of shock following the blow, the guard's grip faltered. Al successfully wrenched free, and staggered into the corner, pressing himself against the wall and trying to keep his feet. They had to know he wasn't going to give up—why, _why_ couldn't he give up? It had been so long, so very long, and he was tired of it. Tired of fighting. Tired of waking up each morning to force himself through another miserable day.

So tired.

"Al, answer me. Who is Stevie?"

"Go away and leave me alone!" Al shrieked. "Just leave me alone!"

"Al, I'm—"

His hand closed on something perched on the edge of the bookshelf. It was his model of an A-4. Sleek and beautiful—he'd dreamed so many futile dreams of that plane, on the long, empty nights. He'd spent so many hours reliving that last flight, trying to work out what he might have done differently—the tens of thousands of tiny things that he might have done just a little differently that would have prevented the encounter with an anti-aircraft missile.

The anger wasn't affected now. It was real. He was so angry. Angry at Charlie, and the bastard who had married Beth, angry at his second wife, the Hungarian who used to throw toasters, angry at Ruthie, who was happy now in Jersey, angry at Sharon, who had cheated on him, angry at Eleese, who was leaving Starbright, angry at this meddling fool trying to question him now, and angry at himself. Angry at Al Calavicci, whom he knew was drunk, and shouting, and rapidly losing his last, tenuous grip on reality.

"_Leave me alone!_" Al bellowed, and he threw the model plane straight at Thorgard.

It bounced harmlessly off of the chemist's chest, and the next thing Al knew he was pinned against the wall, the older man leaning in with his shoulder against the captain's collarbone.

"Eulalie!" Thorgard called. "Eulalie, if you would be good enough to get Commander Bancroft down here—"

"No!" Al whimpered, as those words struck home. "No, no, I don't need a doctor. I don't."

"You do," Thorgard said. "You need help. You're killing yourself, Al, and I'm damned if I'm just going to stand here and watch it happen!"

"No doctor, please!" Al begged. "No! Just… I just need to sit down. Calm down. I need to calm down. Please…"

Thorgard helped him to his chair, and Al collapsed into it, trembling violently. His legs were gelatinous, and his head felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds. He put his arms on the table and was about to ease his head onto them, when something caught his eye. On the corner of the desk, easily within arm's reach was a bottle of bourbon. He smiled a little. That was what he needed. A little drink. A sip of something to settle his nerves and clear his head. That would do the trick!

He reached for it.

Adrian Thorgard hardly ever got angry. He was known both at Starbright and throughout the Department of Defence as one of the single most level-headed, dispassionate, reasonable and compassionate men in the country. In Al's years with the Project, he had never seen the aged chemist display anything stronger than the occasional temperate disapproval. Now he swooped into action. He grabbed the bottle before Al could take it, and hurled it against the door. It shattered wetly, but by the time the last shards of glass hit the floor, Thorgard hand his fist around Al's rumpled collar.

"Damn you!" he shouted. "Damn you, you're an intelligent man! Can't you see what you're doing to yourself?"

Al struggled. When Charlie got mad, the best thing to do was to cooperate, to grovel. Calavicci wasn't one to grovel. They wanted to lick him, they'd have to do worse than shake him! "Let go of me!" he growled. "Go to hell!"

"This _is_ hell!" Thorgard roared. "I don't know what else you'd call it, watching a person with so much brains and potential destroying himself for nothing! You won't even try to fix it! I warned you, I told you to get help, and I know I'm not the first one who's said it, either! But here you are, drinking yourself into oblivion! Donna's right! Maybe you are a disgrace to the Project! I know I'm ashamed of you, Al! I can't remember ever being so ashamed!"

Al stiffened as if he had been slapped, and then went limp in the other man's grip. It was all true, he thought wretchedly. He was drunk, when he should be working. He had failed Stevie. He had let down everyone: Momma, Pop, Lisa and Chip and Beth and Ruthie, all the guys who had depended on him in 'Nam, he'd let down his friends, and his wives, and his coworkers. Eulie, he'd let her down, and now Thorgard… He was drunk. He was drunk, and all that he wanted was a little more to drink…

"I'm sorry," he said, even though he knew that that was completely inadequate. "I'm a failure."

"If you can't admit when you need help, then yes! Yes, you're a failure!" Thorgard cried. "Damn it, Al, all anybody asked was that you try, and you couldn't even do that! Well, I'm done! It isn't my problem anymore, either! If you want to kill yourself, go ahead, but ask yourself this: who's going to miss you when you're gone?"

Al was vaguely conscious of Thorgard storming away. The door opened, and then closed. He could hear the chemist telling Eulalie to forget about calling the doctor. Then there was silence, at least on the outside.

Within, the voices reared up louder than ever, and vicious. Al couldn't face them. He couldn't bear their hateful words. His eyes fell on the encyclopedias.

That was what he needed! He was surprised that he hadn't thought of it before. Just a little drink to clear his head! That would help.

He smiled a little, ironically, and then struggled to his feet again.

Just a little drink.

That would help.


	41. Chapter Forty

CHAPTER FORTY

Maxine had tried everything. Upon returning to the little apartment—alone, because Al insisted that he had work to do—she had made straight for the bathroom. It was Tuesday, and she had been wearing the same clothes since Saturday morning. A nice, long, hot shower did make her feel a little better, and she put on her favorite green leggings and a light but fluffy acrylic sweater. Bright hoop hearings were a necessity, and twin crescents of blue eye shadow. Still not feeling herself, she had settled in front of the television to touch up her nail polish.

By the time the paint was dry, she knew that this wasn't helping. She tried to read. She tried to work on her essay. She tried to study. Finally, she changed into a t-shirt, put on some socks and her sneakers, and headed for the gym. Neither laps around the room, nor abdominal crunches, nor weight training, nor a session with the basketball hoop sufficed to distract her from the bewilderment and the gnawing, growing worry.

_Cancer_.

It was such an ugly word. The names of many ethereal monsters before it—Minotaur and Grendel, Fenrir and Wendigo—it haunted the collective psyche. Unlike its mythical counterparts, however, its thread was very real. It tore through bodies indiscriminately: young and old, fit and slothful, healthy and ailing. It granted no favors by class, color or intelligence. It shredded lives, broke hearts and destroyed family.

To Max, it had never been more than a distant reality, something that "other people" dealt with. She had a little understanding of the side effects of chemotherapy, and an awareness of the fact that it could be quickly and painfully fatal. Now, suddenly, she was being forced to look at it in a different light, and she was frightened.

Nothing in her previous experience had prepared Maxine for the last few days. Al's terror and Celestina's distress, when they had realized Stevie's body wasn't as it should be… the battery of tests in the emergency room…the nights spent on waiting room chairs… these were all new experiences for Maxine. Then there was the pilgrimage into Phoenix. She had never been to a Children's Hospital before. It was a pleasant-looking facility, with pretty grounds, a playground, colorful murals and smiling nurses, and yet it was one of the most frightening and heartbreaking places Max had ever been.

She was haunted by the memory of the oncology ward, where they had spent most of Monday. There was a play space there, with a toy kitchen, a doll house, riding toys and a water table with marbles instead of fluid. For the older kids there was a lounge with a television and board games, a pinball machine, two Atari game consoles, and even an Apple computer. There was a little library, and a room lined in shelves full of craft supplies. The school room had big, round tables instead of stark rows of desks. Ostensibly, it was a child's paradise.

The children who occupied this utopia, however, lacked the one thing Max had enjoyed in abundance all through her poor and generally unhappy childhood: health. The kids were all critically ill. Some seemed happy and energetic, only their bald heads or sore-encrusted lips betraying their disease and its brutal treatment. Others were pale little ghosts, sitting forlornly on the beanbag chairs, or huddling in their hospital beds. Some were too weak to walk, and were ferried about in wheelchairs, eager to be a part of the play, but physically unable to join in without assistance. One girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen, had drifted up and down the hallway like a pallid, emaciated wraith, dragging her IV pole with one hand, and hugging a well-loved teddy bear with her other arm.

Maxine was finding it hard to cope with the reality that there were so many sick children in the world, much less in Arizona. That sweet little Esteban was one of them was a horror that she wasn't ready to face. At the same time, she knew that she had to, and she had hoped that Al would take the time to help her do that. Instead, he had fled the car and hurried straight to his office without a word. He couldn't have vanished any more quickly if the Devil himself had been on his heels.

Max stepped off the elevator and started towards home again. She was halfway up the corridor and had just brought out her key when the other lift arrived. As its door opened, a slurred but familiar voice rang out.

"Let go 'f me! Lemme go!"

Maxine turned just in time to see Phil Prysock slam against the wall as he tried to pull her husband into the hallway. She took one halting step towards them, not quite sure what was happening.

"Come on, Captain. We're almost there," Prysock said.

"No!" Al cried, trying to haul himself further into the enclosed space of the elevator. "No, please! I'm—I'm sorry—"

His eyes were wild and bloodshot, darting frantically around, and his movements as he fought against the younger man's hands were uncoordinated and sloppy. Prysock hooked his ankle around Al's leg and finally dragged him into the corridor when he tripped against it. Al overbalanced and pitched forward. Phil couldn't catch him in time, or didn't try, and in a blur of colorful clothing, Al hit the carpet. He curled immediately into a ball and tried to cover his head with his arms.

"Captain, come on," Prysock repeated. "You're almost there. You're almost home, and you can get some sleep. Then you'll—"

"Home…" The word was hollow and haunted. It didn't even sound as if Al was the one speaking. "Home…"

Prysock bent over him, trying to lift him by the shoulders. Al whimpered wretchedly and tried to shrink away. His back spasmed, and Maxine finally regained control over her body.

"What's going on?" she demanded, dropping to her knees next to her husband and looking up at the Deputy Administrator.

Phil flushed a brilliant red. "Maxine—Mrs. Calavicci—I—Eulalie—she tried to call you, but she couldn't get an answer—Human Resources said you hadn't been to your office today---"

"I was in the gym," Max said. "What's wrong with Al?"

Astonishingly, Prysock's flush deepened. "He… he was, well…"

Maxine turned to the cowering Naval officer instead. "Al?" she called. "Al, what's wrong?"

She tried to pet his hair, which was badly in need of washing. He flinched fearfully at her touch. As he shook his head, a thick stench wafted upwards. Maxine stiffened. He reeked of liquor. She raised her gaze to Prysock again.

"He's drunk," she said softly, shock and horrified. "He's _drunk_?"

"Again." Phil nodded sadly. "He was in with Doctor Thorgard, and I think…" He seemed to reconsider his words, and he pursed his lips briefly. "I think we should get him to bed," he finished.

Maxine nodded numbly. Why was Al drunk? Where had he found alcohol? He _didn't drink anymore_…

Al coughed hoarsely, and the flood of questions and contradictions was forgotten. If she set aside the fact that it _was_ Al, who _didn't_ drink, the situation was simple. Max had put drunk men to bed before, and been put to bed drunk once or twice herself. She knew what to do, even if she hadn't really expected to do it ever again. Trying to ignore the anxious twitching, she took hold of Al's arm.

"Al," she said, gently but firmly. "Al, get up. Let's get you to bed."

"No," he mumbled thickly. "No, please! I won't do it again. I promise I won't do it again. Don't… not again, not again, please!"

"Help me get him up," Max told Phil, trying to sound more capable than she felt. Between the two of them, they hauled Al to his feet. He tried to stifle a despairing moan, and his head lolled towards Maxine's shoulder. They took three steps before he panicked, trying to writhe out of their grasp.

"No!" he cried. "No, I won't go! I won't go! You can't—I won't let you—leave me alone, leave me alone!"

Max let go of his arm and wrapped her arm around his chest.

"Al!" she shouted. "Al, calm down. Calm down. We have to get you to bed."

The word seemed to penetrate. Al exhaled in several thick pants, and Max tried not to choke on the stink of the booze on his breath. He squinted as if trying to make out her face.

"Bed?" he echoed, reaching for her. He tried for her cheek, but he didn't quite make it: his hand landed on her collarbone, and slid down to her breast. "Bed? I'd like that, beautiful."

Max almost laughed. That sounded much more like Al than the desperate pleading did. "Okay," she said. "Come on, then."

"Beautiful," Al mumbled. His other hand found her hip and he rocked a little as he drew her closer. He blinked, trying to focus, and a small puzzled frown furrowed his forehead as he looked up at her. "Lisa?" he murmured.

"No, Maxine," she said.

"Maxine," he repeated. "Maxine. Maxine, Maxine, Maxine…"

"That's right," Max told him. She was growing uncomfortable with the situation, and wanted to get Al into bed as quickly as possible. "Let's go."

They made it to the suite without further incident. Almost before Maxine had the door open, however, Al began to retch. Prysock took action at once, seizing Al and dragging him to the kitchenette and bodily bending him over the sink before the worst of the heaves began. Max closed the door, watching numbly as Al shook in his subordinate's arms, vomiting up bile and alcohol. When it was finally over, Phil—a little green himself—started the water and eased Al against the counter. Max hesitated, almost unwilling to participate in the ugly scene. Then she thought how she would feel in Al's place, inebriated and vulnerable, and whether she would rather be helped by an employee or by her spouse. The answer was obvious.

"Thanks, Phil," she said, putting a hand on Al's back. "I'll take it from here."

Prysock nodded. "he needs to get help, Maxine," he said. "Eulalie shouldn't have to put up with this, and I can't keep covering for him."

"Sure," Max said. "I'll talk it over with him."

"Good. You… uh… you take care of yourself, huh?"

Max nodded, and with one last, dubious look at Al, Prysock withdrew. Maxine left Al slumped over the countertop and bolted the door. When she returned, she found him drooling gently onto the melamine.

"Let's get you to bed," she said in the same voice she used when trying to coax action out of a reluctant Esteban. She took a facecloth from the linen cupboard, and moistened it with warm water.

"You should have stayed home," she scolded, gently wiping chime and mucus from Al's mouth and unshaven chin. "Now you've upset Phil, and probably Eulalie, and… and _where_ did you get booze?"

Al coughed. "Thanks, kid," he muttered. "That feels better."

Maxine tried to smooth his hair. "You'll feel fine once you've slept some of it off," she fibbed. Really, she expected he would wake up with a horrific hangover, but she couldn't see any value in pointing that out.

She realized abruptly that Al was trying to suck on the facecloth, and moved it out of his way.

"Kid, please," he breathed. " 'M thirsty…"

"Okay," Max said; "but let me get you a cup." She filled a glass with cool water and helped him straighten up enough to safely swallow. Al took a frantic sip, and then began to sputter, spitting out the fluid.

"Cold!" he said in shock. "It's _cold_!"

Max emptied the glass, refilling it with lukewarm liquid. This time, Al drained it in a long, painful swallow. He fell back against the counter, gasping shallowly. Maxine took his arms.

"Come on," she said. "Time for bed."

"Bed…" Al mumbled "Bed. Sleep." He hiccoughed loudly and leaned heavily on Maxine as she steered him towards the bedroom. "Can you… is there anything you can do for my back?" he hissed. "It'll fester…"

"Your back?" Max echoed, reaching out to pull back the covers.

Al grunted softly, allowing her to ease him onto the mattress. She removed his shoes and loosened his belt, then carefully undid his tie. There was a tense moment as she unbuttoned his shirt, and he tried to fight her, but a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth calmed him almost at once. As she started to tuck the covers around him, he reached out and caught her wrist.

"Beth?" he murmured.

"Maxine," she corrected, trying not to feel hurt. He was drunk, she reminded herself. Very, very drunk.

"Beth, you waited…"

Then his eyes slipped closed, and an intoxicated snore rumbled deep in his throat.

Maxine stepped back, watching him for a moment. Then she withdrew into the living room, sitting down on her sofa and hugging her leg to her chest. She rested her chin on her knee.

Al wasn't a drinker, she told herself for what had to be the hundredth time. He had probably just been upset about Esteban, and tried to forget his worries. He would wake up with a headache, takes some aspirin, and probably want to make love, and then things would go on as they always had.

A faint, acidic stench reminded her that Al had tossed his cookies in the kitchen sink. She got up with a small sigh. It was better to clean vomit up early, before it started to _really_ stink. She opened the cupboard under the sink, but all she found was a spare bottle of detergent, two wire pot-scrubbers, and the plastic drying rack. Max frowned. There was bleach here somewhere, but if it wasn't under the sink…

She almost laughed at her own stupidity. It was under the _bathroom_ sink! She moved into the other room, and knelt down to dig out the white gallon jug. As she drew it out, she knocked over the bottle of glass cleaner. She moved to replace it, inwardly berating herself for her clumsiness. Suddenly she realized that the three bottles at the very back, all but hidden behind the pipes, didn't look like cleaning chemicals. She took one out. Her stomach wrenched. The other two were swiftly retrieved.

A half-empty bottle of whiskey, the dregs of a bottle of bourbon, and an almost-full jug of cheap gin sat by her knees, taunting her. Max didn't want to believe it, but suddenly she couldn't quite discount it. Bleach forgotten, she hurried into the other room, and reached behind the TV. How many times had she come into the suite to see Al fiddling with the wires, not even bothering to pull it from behind the wall?

Her fingers touched something hard, smooth and cool. She drew out another bottle.

There was one behind the extra sack of flour in the bottom of the pantry. Another was hidden in the drawer where Al kept his financial papers. A quick search of the closets yielded three that had been stashed in boxes with various parts of his dress uniform, a half-bottle of brandy hidden in a pair of silver disco shoes, and an assortment of mini-bottles of the kind served on airplanes and in hotel rooms stashed in the pockets of Al's many sports jackets and suits.

Numb with dismay and disillusionment, Maxine gathered the hoarded liquor on the kitchen table. In less than half an hour, she had found thirty-two different vessels—at least five gallons of liquor, and many of them already nearly empty. Her legs began to shake, and she sank into a chair before she could fall over.

All this time, she had thought that Al wasn't drinking. Suddenly the morning headaches, the red eyes, the irritability and the evasive behavior made sense. He probably had more stashed in his office—for all she knew, there was more right here, so well hidden that she hadn't found it. Al _was_ a drinker, after all.

Oh, God, and he had been drinking at work.

Maxine pressed her hand to her mouth and rocked back and forth, trying with all her might not to succumb to the nausea of disgust and worry that was threatening to swallow her.

Al was a drinker.

What was she going to do?

An hour ago, she had felt so capable, soothing Al after his nausea and coaxing him into bed. Now she felt like what she was: an overgrown child, young, frightened, stupid, and hopelessly powerless. She got to her feet and ran to the bathroom, unable to bear the sight of the incontrovertible proof of her husband's vice. She huddled in the empty bathtub and cried until exhaustion silenced her.


	42. Chapter FortyOne

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Al woke up in agony. His head was throbbing, and his stomach was pulsing, and his heart beat out a shallow rhythm at odds with both of them. He moaned and rolled onto his back—and right off the bed, landing with a concussive thud in a tangle of sweat-soaked sheets. He lay there for a minute or two, stunned from the fall and distracted by the blacksmith's forge that had been established, sometime during the night, right behind his eyes.

Bet they hadn't bothered to get the necessary county permits before setting up shop.

He tried to open his eyes, but what he assumed was light filtering in from the other room stabbed mercilessly at his corneas. A jolt of nausea radiated from his gut, exploding in heat and misery in his extremities. After choking back the acid that flooded his mouth, Al shuddered, not quite able to stifle the resultant whimper. He tried to remember what he had been up to last night. Must've been one hell of a party.

A cruel cackle ripped into him, and he curled instinctively, as if he could protect himself physically from the Furies that plagued his soul.

'_Do you _really _think you're still twenty-two?' _the voice jeered. _'How many years has it been since you were last hung over from celebrating with the guys? You were drinking yourself stupid again, because that's what you always do when you're too cowardly to face the real world!'_

Al flinched, trying to exorcise his tormentor through strength of will. It was useless. There was only one way to silence that voice…

'_That's why you're hung over, you worthless rummy!' _his tormentor crowed triumphantly, giving no consideration to his aching head. '_Don't you remember what you did?_'

"No!" Al whimpered. Then the misery turned to panic.

He _didn't_ remember.

Frantically, he tried to sift through the muddled impressions of the last few days. HE remembered a woman. A beautiful woman with curling red hair, and eyes…eyes like Beth's… she was capable, too, and kind… like Beth. A nurse, just like B…

He had to stop thinking about Beth, he told himself sternly. Already, the voices were mocking him. If he wasn't careful, if he didn't stop—

He had to stop. Resolutely, he thought about the CT scan that they had given Stevie in Phoenix. Interesting machine. Like and x-ray, the technologist had explained, but it could capture images in multiple planes, and…

Oh, God, word association was a terrible thing. Al cringed in anguish as the sharp wail of a SAM missile exploded in his ears. Although his eyes were screwed tightly closed, he could see Chip's sleek A-4 at the moment of impact. He could feel his internal organs shifting to the left and down as he pulled up his own jet, banking to starboard to avoid the fireball that swallowed his best buddy in a moment of horror that he had often, in the weeks and months that followed (and, were he being honest, which he was not, periodically through eighteen subsequent years of stress and mental torment) envied the other lieutenant.

'_You would, you selfish son of a bitch!_' the voice sneered. '_Wish this crap on someone else and take the easy road yourself. Some friend!_'

"Stop it!" Al sobbed, unaware that he was giving voice to the wretchedness. "Leave me alone!'

'_Go ahead!' _the voice mocked. '_Go ahead and stop me, you coward! Worthless scum! Do it! Make me shut up! You know that you want to!_'

Al bit back the gorge rising in his throat, and crawled forward to the nightstand. He groped behind it, trying not to listen to the cruel goading. The shame almost stopped him where his tormentor could not, but the fear was stronger in the end. HE drew out the bottle of scotch, uncapped it with quivering hands, and drank desperately.

His stomach rebelled, but he chocked back the reflux, focusing on the feel of the liquor, the heat, the slow diffusion of calm that spread into his bloodstream. Gradually, the tremors in his limbs eased, and his breathing settled into a gentler pattern. Another swallow was needed before he had the courage to put the bottle away. He waited, breathlessly, but the voices did not return.

Presently, Al felt able to uncurl, disentangling himself from the bedclothes. He realized that he was still almost fully dressed, and grimaced at the smell of stale sweat that clung to the rumpled garments. He stood up and stumbled towards the laundry hamper. There, he stripped hastily, peeling off the layers of cloth as if by doing so he could remove the stigma of his bleak thoughts. He snatched his smoking jacket from its hangar and moved through to the bathroom

The cupboard under the sink had been torn apart, Al noticed distantly. Bottles of cleaning fluid were scattered over the floor, and the doors were hanging open. Al dropped his jacket on the counter and climbed into the tub, cranking the shower to full pressure. He attacked his skin with the soap, scrubbing away the residue of the hellish weekend.

Stevie was sick, he realized, his gut writhing miserably. The cancer was back, it was in his liver, and that was so serious that even the diagnostic biopsy entailed a degree of life-threatening risk. Al bit his lip against the memories of a time before aspiration biopsies, CT scans and sophisticated chemotherapy. Only when the first pink droplets fell onto his still-scrubbing arm did he realize that he was fighting that ghost too hard.

Al felt a pang of bitter despair. He couldn't escape past pains, and he couldn't cope with present ones. His life was spiraling out of control, like a carnival ride with a broken throttle. He couldn't slow it down, he couldn't steer it, and if it kept going like this it was going to careen off into oblivion, taking him with it. The only way to short-circuit the inevitable was to unbuckle the safety harness and jump—

Al slammed his fist against the tiled wall. What the hell kind of a thought was that? The next question was more frightening.

What the hell kind of a person was he becoming?

_MWMWMWMWMWM_

Al finished the shower as quickly as he could, and returned to the bedroom to dress. His headache was back, though the taunting voices were thankfully still dormant. He returned to the nightstand, where he washed down three aspirins with another slug of scotch. He donned something bright and comfortable, settling resignedly into the muzzy semi-misery of the hangover.

Maxine was sitting on the sofa in the next room, her heals tucked up against her buttocks and her arms crossed over her calves. Her chin was resting on her knees, and she was staring resolutely at the television set. What was odd about the tableau was that the screen was showing a varicolored test pattern. Confused, Al looked at the clock. It was a quarter after one.

"Max?" he said, his voice croaking a little. He tried to remember how he had reached his bed. The TV told him that it was morning, not afternoon, but the last thing he really remembered was signing the VISA slip at the Children's Hospital so that he could drive Stevie and Celestina home. Everything after that was a blur, snippets of an ugly picture. Had he thrown one of his planes at someone? He remembered Eleese telling him something, her disgust barely concealed under her usually unflappable professional demeanor, and for some reason "sixteen weeks!" flitted through his mind…

He realized abruptly that his wife hadn't responded to his greeting. He stepped nearer to the couch.

"Hey, kiddo," he said, trying to sound cheerful. "What's up?"

Eyes still fixed on the television, Maxine spoke. Her voice was terse and breathy, a carefully controlled but undeniably furious whisper. Her words, brief though they were, cut right through Al's fragile composure.

"You lied," she said.

Cognizant of more than forty years of various crimes of dishonesty, Al nonetheless fell back upon the obvious out. "No, I didn't," he contradicted.

It was the wrong thing to say. Max's feet shot off the sofa, her back straightened and her head whipped to the side. Her bright blue eyes were blazing with fury.

"You did!" she cried. "You told me you had stopped! You said you weren't drinking anymore!"

Now Al felt himself waxing defensive. She was being totally unreasonable! "So I got a little drunk!" he snapped. "So what?"

"You weren't 'a little' drunk!" she exclaimed. "You were staggering, slobbering, stupid drunk! Phil had to bring you home because there was no way you would've found your own way!"

Al was momentarily stunned. He didn't remember _that_. Phil Prysock? Oh, God.

"Yeah, well, it's been a rough few days," he mumbled defensively. "It won't happen again—"

A feral ululation of rage tore itself from Maxine as she sprung to her feet. "Don't _lie _to me!" she shrieked. "Don't lie to me!"

She gestured wildly at the counter, where Al saw to his horror the lion's share of his carefully concealed bottles, heaped together in a damning clutch. The consternation at discovery quickly shifted to a feeling of angered violation when he realized that the vessels were empty.

"What the hell did you do?" he barked.

Her eyes went wide. "Me? What did _I _do?" she hissed. "You—you lied to me!"

"I did not!" Al protested. "I never lied!"

"You told me you stopped!"

"I _didn't_!" Shocked at the volume of his own voice, Al added more softly; "I just let you think…"

"Bastard," Max whispered.

The nausea was back. Al hadn't had a fight like this in years. Sharon had been a shouter. Even Ruthie had yelled. The Hungarian had liked to throw things. The last time he had had a _quiet_ fight…

"You've been drinking the whole time," Maxine went on, her voice low and suffused with betrayal. "All those times you were sick, the headaches, days you could hardly walk straight… Doctor Bancroft was right. It was the booze."

"Commander Bancroft," Al corrected reflexively. Then the words struck home. "You told _Bancroft_?"

"I thought you were sick!" Max cried. She shook her head, one hand groping helplessly at her sternum. "I thought… God, I'm an _idiot_. They told me. Everybody said you were drinking. Sharon—"

"What's Sharon got to do with anything?" Al demanded. When ex-wives started cropping up in an argument, it was never a good sign…

"She said men like you don't stop drinking overnight. She tried to warn me that…" Maxine shook her head. "And she was right. Everyone's right. You're… you're a drunk."

"I'm no such thing!" Al snapped. "What do you know about it, anyway?"

"You're _hiding_ alcohol!" Max breathed. "You have a problem, Al. You need help, and I don't know how to help you. I don't know what I have to do. Tell me what I have to do."

"Mind you own business, that's what you have to do," he groused. "And I told you not to pour my stuff down the sink! We've had this conversation!"

"Yes!" Max barked. "Yes, we have, and it ended with you letting me think you were done. But you aren't. You've been drinking steadily ever since and hiding it, haven't you?"

Al's throat was dry, and suddenly he couldn't quite manage to force words out. He shook his head dumbly.

The hurt and disappointment in Maxine's eyes was almost unbearable. "Haven't you?" she whispered. "And I've been playing along. I've been talking to people, trying to figure out what's wrong with you. Nick Carter's been standing up for you to the other Marines, saying it's just gossip, and… and it's all true."

Al's lips moved mutely. He was numb with horror. It wasn't right. He couldn't deal with this. If she'd been dealing out a matriarchal lecture, or screaming at the top of her lungs, if she'd even throw the toaster at him, that he could deal with. This strange stillness… this quiet betrayal, he couldn't cope with it. He remembered the last argument he had had like this one, and he wished to God he could forget it. When he'd first told Beth the news, she had been furious, angry and wrathful, matching him roar for holler. Later that night, though, there had been this same deadly calm. Venomous and disillusioned and hurt… Three months later, he'd been back in action, his wife's disapproval of the second tour nothing more than an unpleasant memory.

A memory he had relived at considerable length throughout his six damned years in the jungle.

Maxine was still talking. "You're not listening! You're still drunk." She pressed her fingers to her mouth in a gesture of unmanageable horror. "You're… you're still drunk."

The tears that Al hadn't noticed while they were hovering behind her eyes chose this moment to spill down her cheeks. He realized that she wasn't wearing makeup, and that these weren't the first tears of the evening. His heart melted into a quagmire of remorse.

"Max…" he implored softly, stretching out his hand. "Max, you don't know what it's like… it's not a problem. I was upset, that's all. Upset about Stevie. And—and Eleese…"

"What about Eleese?" Max choked out. She was trying to stop crying, but it was a losing battle.

"She…" Al tried once again to sift through the blurred recollections. "I don't know."

"I do," Maxine said. "She quit, didn't she? She's leaving because she's not happy and the Project is out of control and you're a—"

"I'm not a drunk!" he roared, starting menacingly towards her. "I'm not a drunk! It's been a rough day!"

'_Sure,' _his constant companion sneered. '_Rationalize it. Pretend you don't know the truth. Pretend you can control it. I'll bet you think you can control the memories, too! Lie to her, lie to yourself. Maybe if she believes it, you can believe it too, right?_'

"Leave me alone!" Al cried, one hand unwittingly flying up to claw at his temple. "Leave me alo—"

He stopped. Maxine had backed against the other sofa, and was watching him warily. "You _are_," she breathed. "You are and you need help. They're right. They're all right about you…"

"No," Al gasped. "No. I'm not. It's… it's been such a rough week, that's all. Max… aw, kid, don't cry…"

He stepped forward again, reaching gently towards her. He'd hug her and wipe away the tears staining her pretty cheeks, and then they could make love as if this hadn't happened, and in the morning it would all be forgotten, and—

She scrambled over the sofa and pressed herself against the wall. Al tried to follow her, but he was clumsy from the toxins still coursing through his system, and he stumbled against the couch. He stared at her, stricken.

"No," she said forcefully. "_No_. We'll talk again when you're sober. You just stay away from me. I can't… I can't even stand to _look_ at you right now!"

She turned away. Al stood, bent over the sofa, his legs trembling and his arms shivering. Maxine's shoulders were twitching as she tried to sob as silently as she could. The silence stretched on and on.

'_I wouldn't want to look at you, either,_' the voice commented in a cruel sing-song drawl.

Fighting the nausea that once again bubbled up from some deep well of shame and self-loathing, Al ran for the bedroom. At least she hadn't found the bottle behind the nightstand.


	43. Chapter FortyTwo

NOTE: The medical information given in this chapter is accurate for 1984, not 2007. I do not want to give liver transplantation a bad name. Today, it is a highly successful, life-saving procedure. Advances in surgical technique and immunosuppressive therapy, as well as increased sophistication of donor/recipient matching protocols have improved the odds enormously in twenty years.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

After that ugly fight, it was inevitable that there would be nightmares. Between her own demons and Al's, Maxine slept very little that week. In sleep there were angry voices and cruel, heavy hands—and a gray-skied slum now and then invaded by the tortured screams of her bedfellow. Because of the fight, and more importantly Al's refusal to discuss the as-yet-unresolved issue, sex was not an option. Without carnal pleasure, there was nothing to banish the horrors. Al was lucky. Although Max couldn't find it, she knew now that he had more liquor stashed somewhere in the suite, and she knew that he used it as an antidote to the night terrors. She was blind and naïve, but she _wasn't _stupid. She could learn from her mistakes. Just because he seemed sober didn't mean he was.

The worst part of it was that she didn't know what to do. She couldn't even remember the names of all the men she had slept with, and she had had more boyfriends than any girl she knew, not counting streetwalkers and her own mother. Max had _tons _of experience with guys, and she was certainly no stranger to bad relationships. Physical and emotional abuse, gambling, drugs, other women—she had seen it all. She had learned the hard way that men weren't going to quit those things just 'cause she wanted them to, and that there was a time to pack your duffel and run away in the middle of the night.

But Al was different. First of all, he wasn't doing hard drugs. It was just alcohol. Back in her Atlantic City days—almost sixteen and dazzled by a world so unlike the one she had come from—Max had spent almost every night drinking 'til she puked. When she had moved on, she'd had no trouble cutting back. She knew lots of people who had done the same thing. Alcohol wasn't like heroin, or crack, or even cigarettes. It was so easy to stop drinking, and that was why Maxine hadn't doubted that Al had quit.

Now she knew she had been foolish to believe it, and had it been any other guy she would've left him already. Again, though, Al was different. During their fight, he hadn't even tried to grab her or strike her. He had seemed vulnerable, almost frightened. How could she hate him when he had fled to the bedroom, too ashamed of himself even to face her?

The final complication was that Al wasn't some random boyfriend. He was her husband and although Maxine had never bought into marriage as some indissoluble, eternal, celestial contract, it _did_ add an extra obstacle. If they did split up, it would involve more than Max getting a place of her own or crashing with a friend. There would be legal implications… trial separation… divorce…

Max didn't want a divorce. She loved Al.

His cigars, on the other hand…

"If you're going to smoke, at least roll down the window," she said in some annoyance.

"I'll smoke where I want," Al grumbled around the costly cigar, keeping his eyes on the highway.

"Roll down your window, _please_," Maxine repeated, leaning forward to work the crank on the passenger side.

Al rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said, complying with her request.

That was the sum of their conversation during the hour-long ride into town. The traffic was light on a Wednesday morning, and they pulled up in front of the elementary school. Al switched off the engine, and Max quickly got out.

"Aren't you coming?" she asked, bending to peer into the car.

Al was staring straight ahead. "Not exactly a two-person job," he said. "It isn't as if you've got to get him into a snowsuit or anything."

"But I don't know—"

"Celestina talked it over with the teacher. It's fine," Al told her flatly. "Just go to the third grade classroom and tell the teacher you're there to get him."

"But…" Maxine realized that he wasn't going to yield. "Fine." She closed the door, and went in alone.

There was something almost irreverent about wandering through the empty halls of a school. Max couldn't remember the last time she'd been in a building like this. Probably not since those last hellish months of high school, before she had finally decided that she couldn't deal with it anymore, and decided never to come back. She found the third grade classroom easily, and knocked on the door.

A little girl in a shabby play-dress opened it. She looked up at Max, eyes slightly widened.

"Miss Harvey!" she shouted, turning around to face the room. "Miss Harvey, there's a _movie star_ at the door!"

Maxine laughed a little, self-consciously fingering one of her brightly-colored bangles, and then tried to smile as the puzzled teacher rose from her desk and crossed the room.

"Hi. I'm Max—Maxine Calavicci. I'm here to pick up Esteban for his appointment," she said. She scanned the rows of small heads, bent studiously over their desks. She couldn't see the one she was looking for.

Miss Harvey, a thirty-something woman with severely cropped hair and a brightly colored silk blouse, nodded. "His cubby is right on the end," she said. "He's down in the resource room right now with the rest of the…" Her voice lowered to a careful whisper. "Mentally challenged children."

"Thanks," Max said, a little uneasily. The teacher returned to her seat, and Maxine moved towards the indicated storage space.

"Are you gonna take Ben to the doctor?" one of the boys asked as she squatted down to collect the little satchel and jacket.

"No, I'm here to pick up Esteb—" Max smiled as she realized how the child's classmates had shortened his name. "Yes, that's right."

"He got sick last year and his hair fell out," the boy informed her. "Bald heads mean 'be careful'. Jodi's sick, too." He pointed towards the front of the room, where a little girl wearing a cotton scarf over her bare scalp was swinging her legs and humming softly. "You can't play rough with the sick kids. No pushing on the playground and no tackling. Ben's all better now, though, right?"

Max didn't want to lie, but it definitely wasn't her job to start rumors in Esteban's classroom. "You'd better do your work," she said. "You don't want to have to stay in at recess, do you?

The boy shook his head vehemently, and bent back over his desk.

The resource room was much more difficult to find than the third grade classroom, and after a good ten minutes of looking Maxine realized that she should have asked for directions. As she was trying to retrace her steps to the main office, she stumbled upon the object of her search, sandwiched between the janitors' room and the library office. She knocked on the door.

"Come in!" a cheerful voice instructed.

Max stepped into a small, colorful room. Phonics posters decorated the walls, and there were two cases full of easy-read books, both in English and in Spanish. There were three women in the room, and eight children with varying disabilities. One girl, who looked old enough to be in fifth or sixth grade, was strapped into an electric wheelchair. A little boy wearing a blue pudding cap was sitting on the bright alphabet rug, staring vacantly off into space. There was a girl who had obviously had some sort of major brain surgery, sitting and running her fingers over a textured mat. Another was serenely sucking her thumb, lounging against a pile of cushions. The other three, two boys and a girl, were all Downs syndrome children, and one of them recognized Max instantly.

"Mackth—Mack-seen!" Stevie crowed happily, getting to his feet and abandoning the building blocks to hug her thighs.

Max grinned. "Hey, Esteban!" she said cheerfully. "You ready to go?"

"Yup, yup," he said amicably, tugging at his jacket. Maxine helped him into it, and then, with a quick word to the resource teacher, they left.

In the parking lot, Esteban ran ahead of Maxine to bang on the hood of the Buick, but Al didn't respond. He was leaning back in the driver's seat, eyes closed. Maxine herded the little boy into the back seat, and then reached in to poke her husband's shoulder.

He snorted and tried to shrink away. "No…" he moaned. "No, please, not today…"

Esteban, oblivious to the adult's disorientation, bounced happily. "Hi, Mith-ster Al!" he crooned. "How are you?"

Al's eyes opened, flickering anxiously over Maxine's face. He donned a smile for the benefit of the child, and twisted against his seatbelt. "Stevie. Hi. I'm good. How 'bout you?"

"Good!" Esteban said. "Real good!"

Al depressed the clutch and fired up the vehicle with more force than was quite necessary. Maxine knew what he was thinking. The sober truth was that Esteban was not at all good, and that they were on their way to find out just how bad, exactly, the situation was.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

After picking Celestina up from the dry-cleaners where she was employed, the Calaviccis made their way to the hospital. Doctor Ananda's office was just off of the pediatrics ward, and both Al and Celestina seemed to have the route memorized. Al was grim and uncharacteristically silent, and Celestina was fingering her well-loved rosary beads, so it fell to Maxine to keep up a cheerful banter with Esteban. He didn't seem at all affected by the situation, and the surroundings were a source of excitement for him.

"I comed here and they cut my tummy," he told Max. "The doctors took out the bad stuff, and then I got all better! Then Jess gived me medicine, and Mister Al came with me. I like Jess. Will we see Jess?"

They did, indeed, see Jess. She didn't keep them waiting long, and her face was grave when she entered her office. She greeted Esteban first, cheerfully, and then settled him in the corner where she kept a box full of toys, and turned her attention to the adults. She spared the barest courtesies before getting to the point.

"Esteban has stage two metastases to his liver," she said somberly.

"Stage two?" Al said. "That's good…"

Ananda shook her head. "No, it's not good, Captain. The prognosis is better than with stage three, but his chances of surviving the next five years are still only one in four."

Al drew in a long, shuddering breath, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

"You make him better," Celestina said with confidence. "You give him bad medicines, he get better."

The pediatrician shook her head sadly. "I'm afraid it isn't that simple, Mrs. Penja," she said. "The success rate of chemotherapy alone is not high."

"Then what are our options?" Al asked harshly.

"There are nine tumors," Ananda said. "Two are on his gallbladder—"

"You can take the gallbladder out, right?" Maxine cut in. "It's useless, like the appendix."

"Not quite useless," the physician said; "but yes, in most cases it's completely removable, with little or no impact on the patient. That's definitely the course of action I would recommend in Esteban's case. Unfortunately, the other tumors radiate out through the left lobe of his liver, and one is in the right lobe, near the hepatic artery. Of these, five are between one-quarter and one-and-a-half inches in diameter. The other two are much smaller, less than one-eighth of an inch each."

"What are our options?" Al repeated. Maxine reached out instinctively to take his hand, but he shrank away from her.

"It would be possible to remove the tumors surgically," Ananda said. "Since they're malignant—cancerous—they're not encapsulated, which means that there's no way to tell how far they've infiltrated into Esteban's liver. The surgeon would have to cut out a lot of normal tissue, too. The difficulty is that they are all vascular, attached to the body's blood supply, so surgery would certainly be dangerous." She sighed almost inaudibly. "There is another danger, as well. Because there are so many tumors, there's a possibility that there wouldn't be enough healthy tissue left after resection. Esteban might survive the operation, only to die of acute liver failure in the recovery ward."

"Die?" Celestina exclaimed. "Esteban not die! You give him medicine…"

"He could get a transplant," Al said. "You could replace his liver."

From the look in Ananda's eyes, this was one option that she hadn't planned to put forward. "Captain Calavicci," she said; "we have to be practical…"

Al shook his head. "If it saves his life, the money doesn't matter!" he barked. "I'm not going to let—"

"Captain, a cadaver liver transplant runs to about a half-million dollars for the surgery alone," Ananda said bluntly.

Al was stunned into silence, gaping at her.

Maxine felt vaguely ill. "Half a million?" she echoed. "Seriously?"

"Yes," Ananda affirmed.

"I'll get the money," Al said. "I'll find a way…"

"It's an extremely risky procedure," Ananda said. "Under the best circumstances the one-year survival is fifteen to twenty percent. Esteban would need to be on a drug to suppress his immune system for the rest of his life, so that his body wouldn't reject the liver—that's even assuming that a donor liver could be found. His blood is B-negative, very rare. The surgery would be very painful, and his recovery would be slow. We wouldn't be able to put him on any kind of chemotherapy for at least six months, and if the cancer has metastasized to any other part of his body, beating down his immune system could make it grow faster."

"But…"

"It's not a good option, Captain," Ananda told him gently. "The cost is the least of the reasons that I wouldn't even consider it. Esteban has a better chance with the cancer."

"He can't, I mean…" Al shook his head vaguely, as if he wasn't quite aware of his surroundings. "But cancer…"

"What should we do, then?" Maxine asked.

"The first step is to remove his gallbladder," Ananda said. "I would like to have the two largest tumors removed at once, too. The one by his hepatic artery is especially worrisome. If it grows much larger, it could compromise blood flow to the liver. Doctor Knapper at Sick Kids is an excellent surgeon. He would be able to judge whether the others could be cut out at the same time. Then, of course, Esteban would need chemotherapy. If we aren't able to remove the five smaller tumors, then I think he should receive radiation therapy as well."

"Esteban will have operation?" Celestina said anxiously. "In Phoenix?"

"Yes," Ananda said. "Even if Knapper could come here, the operating rooms aren't equipped for this kind of invasive procedure. It would be dangerous to perform the surgery in Wickenburg."

"When?" Al asked. "When should he have the surgery?"

"As soon as possible," Ananda said. "We can't begin chemo until his abdomen starts scarring, and the longer we delay that, the greater the risk of further metastases."

"You mean it could spread again?" Maxine asked.

"Yes. It's not usual for lymphoma to move into the liver first. The spleen or the pancreas or the lungs are the usual targets. We've checked on the CT scan, and Esteban looks clean, but I'm not comfortable with that," the oncologist explained. "I want him to start chemotherapy as soon as possible. I could get him in for surgery within ten days, if that's what you want to do."

"What are our other options?" Al asked.

"We could remove all seven hepatic tumors regardless of the tissue loss, which I've already said could prove risky," Ananda said; "or we could just start radiation and chemotherapy. I wouldn't recommend that. The tumors in his gallbladder triple his risk of metastases to the colon, and they are completely removable."

"So you could take out his gall bladder and leave his liver alone?" Max clarified, suddenly very glad of her new knowledge of biology.

"We could," said the doctor; "but as long as we have him open anyway—the larger tumors are most likely to spread, and all the blood in his body flows through his liver six times an hour. It's best to get rid of them."

There was a long silence.

"Mrs. Penja?" Ananda asked. "What do you want to do?"

Celestina turned to Al. "You will decide, Senor Calavicci?" she implored. "I do not understand it all. You decide?"

Al sighed miserably, chafing his hand against his forehead. He looked up at the physician.

"The operation, then chemo and radiation, that's his best shot?" he asked hoarsely.

Ananda nodded firmly. "Yes."

Al buried his face in his hands. "One in four odds. His best shot," he mumbled.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Maxine drove home. After supping with the Penjas, Al had driven to the liquor store. Max had wanted to protest, but there was a strange hollowness to his eyes and voice, and she had hoped that a little drink would help him cope with the grim prognosis. All that the drink had done, however, was sink him deeper into solitary silence.

She parked with care in front of the Starbright building, and unbuckled her seatbelt, sitting and waiting for Al to show some sign of life. He hadn't even bothered to take out the alphabet magnets tonight, to go over them with Esteban. It was almost as if he had given up hope.

"How come you don't skate anymore?"

The question caught Maxine off guard. "What?" she gawked.

"Skate. Roller skate. How come you don't practice?" Al asked. "You're not quitting, are you?"

"I've been busy," Maxine demurred. She didn't want him to think that she resented the time that they had been dedicating to Esteban lately. She didn't really miss roller-skating all that much, and certainly her butt was a lot less sore now that she wasn't practicing every day.

"You shouldn't be too busy to reach for your dream," Al said. "I want you to practice. There's another tryout in a couple of weeks, you know."

"I know," Max said. "But I thought, I'm not really good at it anyway, and—"

Al turned to look at her, and the fires of conflict were smoldering in his eyes. "I want you to practice!" he snapped. "Don't give up on your dream! You hear me? You can't give up! Okay?"

"Okay," Max whispered.

"Good! Tomorrow…"

"I'll practice," she said hastily, trying to placate him.

"You'd better!" Al grunted. He fumbled with the passenger door. "Don't give up on your dream!"

He staggered away from the car. Maxine sat petrified, watching as he fell to his knees, and then clamored drunkenly back onto his feet. He made for the door, clutching the already half-empty bottle of cheap Canadian rye to his chest, and dropped his key three times before he managed to work the lock.

Maxine stayed in the car for almost half an hour before she dared to follow him—before she trusted herself not to start another fight over his drinking.

After all, she told herself, it had been a very hard day.


	44. Chapter FortyThree

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Everyone had been giving him the cold shoulder lately, Al reflected as he left his office. Phil Prysock was coolly distant, Eulalie seemed unable to look him in the eye, and even Doctor Thorgard was aloof and evasive. Al dimly remembered fighting with the Head of Chemistry, but he couldn't remember what the argument had been about. Eleese's resignation, probably. That was definitely the biggest problem that the Project was facing right now.

Al wished with all his hear that it was _his_ biggest problem, too, but it didn't even rank. Stevie's cancer and impending surgery, Maxine and her aversion to liquor, the daily struggle to function through the fog that engulfed him, the futile quest for three or four hours of uninterrupted sleep—finding a new quantum physicist didn't even rank.

The elevator stopped, and Al stepped off, halting long enough to cast an admiring eye on the blond, leggy beauty who had been waiting for the lift.

"Hey, beautiful," he murmured.

The blond smiled, revealing a row of perfect teeth. "Hey, Al," she said pleasantly.

He recognized her. "Max? What are you doing here?"

She held up her brightly colored skates. "I was going to practice," she aid. "Want to come?"

Al's overtaxed brain was working too slowly. He needed a drink. He dimly recalled that helping Max learn to skate was fun, but he couldn't quite remember why. And anyway, he _needed a drink_. It would help him relax, and it would make him feel better. He zstill had a little twelve-year-old scotch in the footlocker under his bed…

"Naw, not tonight," he said.

"Why not?" Maxine asked. Her disappointment was palpable. "It would be nice—we could have a shower afterwards…" she added suggestively.

She meant have a shower _together_, Al realized in alarm that was swiftly replaced by smug satisfaction. Even after all these years, he still had it.

All the same… "No thanks, kiddo. I'm a married man."

Max frowned as if she couldn't understand his fidelity to Beth, but then she shrugged.

"Okay," she said. "See you later."

She bent and kissed him gently, just to the left of his mouth, and then she was gone. Al stood alone in the empty corridor, confused and indistinctly unhappy. Finally, he let loose a heavy sigh and started back towards his door. There was whiskey under his bed. All he needed was a little drink, and then the world would make more sense.

Al wished he could figure out why everyone was treating him differently all of a sudden. He was still the same friendly, fun-loving guy that he had always been. Why, then, did he garner such cold treatment? Why was he the butt of such strange looks—pity in some cases and ill-disguised disgust in others? He had seen those looks before, fresh back from his jungle hell with half his normal bulk, a body covered in scars, and a pretty little paper telling him that he was legally dead.

Al didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to remember those days of relearning the habits of the First World… leaping like a rabbit at sudden noises… shrinking instinctively away from other people, because people always meant pain. He didn't want to recall the tests, the operations, and the daily indignities. He had no desire to relive the visit from the kind-faced chaplain who had come to tell him about Beth.

Especially, he didn't want to remember the night he had spent in the bungalow, alone. The little house had been so empty, stripped of all memory of Beth. Her clothes were gone, her wedding china, her cross-stitched NAVY pillow, even the cheap feather duster that she had only ever used on the mantelpiece. Al had walked from room to room—the kitchen and the little laundry cupboard, the spare room, the bath, their bedroom with its soft, deep carpet and sheer curtains. Finally, he had wound up in the living room, wandering from wall to wall like a ghost of another time. Unable to bear the empty husk of his castle of dreams, he had rummaged in his kit bag for the bottle of Jamaica rum that one of his old buddies had given him in the hospital. Unused to liquor after almost seven years of abstinence, and far too underweight, he had been slobbering drunk after three ounces, and unconscious by six. He had awakened the next morning with a brutal hangover, and no desire ever to set foot in that bungalow again.

But he didn't want to think about that. He dug out his key and slipped into his rooms. With the door locked behind him, he knew he was safe. They couldn't get him in here. He was safe.

Al hurried into the bedroom, and hauled out his footlocker. He struggled with the combination for a moment, and then dug out the half-empty bottle. It was the good stuff: high-quality, well-aged whiskey. It settled his uneasy heart, and banished some of the bleak thoughts from his mind.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Without Al, Maxine didn't enjoy skating nearly as much. It wasn't fun to fall when there were no strong and playfully lecherous arms to catch you. After half and hour of struggling to stay upright, she had had enough. She wobbled over to the bleachers and sat to remove her skates. She had landed rather hard on her right knee, and now paused to massage it.

A voice from the door made her look up.

"Oh, sorry… I didn't mean to interrupt."

Max grinned as her eyes met those of Lance Corporal Carter. "Nick! How're you doing?"

"Oh! Maxine!" He came further into the gymnasium. "I'm fine."

He was out of uniform again, wearing a comfortable-looking track suit and a pair of very old sneakers. Maxine slid over a little so that he could sit next to her.

"You like roller-skating?" Nick asked.

"Yeah," Max said. "I'm no good at it, though."

"I'm not coordinated enough to do it," Nick told her. "How's the paper coming?"

Maxine felt suddenly guilty. "I haven't worked on it," she muttered. She had always hated that about school: the homework that was impossible to do, because you were too busy partying every night, and the feeling that you were wicked for neglecting it.

Nick nodded. "I was meaning to ask… is something wrong?" he ventured. "The captain hasn't been himself lately, and I know that the rumors are all malicious lies, but he really doesn't look like he's doing so great. He's not… he's not sick, is he?"

Max had to smile at his anxious concern. "No," she said sadly. She couldn't quite bear to tell Nick the whole truth, but surely there could be no harm in unburdening her heart just a little. "It's a friend. A little boy who was Al's neighbor when he lived in Wickenburg. He's got cancer, and it's moved into his liver."

There was a silence. "I'm sorry," Nick said softly.

Maxine remembered that his brother had sickened and died not long ago. She slipped her hand into his. "Did your brother…"

"Rhabdomyosarcoma," Nick muttered.

"Huh?"

"Muscle cancer," the young Marine said. "The doctors told us it was really, really rare. He was only eighteen when he died."

Max flinched in sympathy and hugged him. "I'm sorry, too," she said.

Nick chuckled softly. "I guess that's kind of a stupid thing to say," he reflected. "I mean, it's not our fault."

Max laughed. "True," she said. "It's a funny expression."

There was another pause.

"D'you like basketball?" Maxine asked.

"Not really," Nick said. "I'm not much for sports."

"You came to the gym," she pointed out.

He ran one hand over his close-cropped hair. "Yeah, but only to jog."

"Basketball's like jogging," Maxine said. "At least, it'll be like jogging if you shoot hoops with me."

"Oh yeah?" Nick said. "Why's that?"

" 'Cause you'll never catch me!"

His laughter was genuine now, not fueled by discomfort. "That sounds like a ringing endorsement!" he said.

Max shrugged. "So what do you want to do, then?"

"I thought you were skating," Nick demurred.

"Nope," Max said. "I'm getting a little sore." She bent forward and resumed the unlacing of her skates.

"You've got the posts out: how 'bout badminton?"

"I'd like that," Max admitted as she tied her sneakers.

Ten minutes later, they were darting back and forth on opposite sides of the net, lobbing the shuttlecock at one another and exchanging pleasant banter.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Stevie was due in Phoenix on Sunday afternoon for his pre-op check-in. On Saturday, Al drove into Phoenix to take Maxine to the roller derby tryouts. He had hoped that the even would prove ample distraction for both of them. Max hadn't said anything, but Al could tell that she was anxious about Stevie's surgery. Probably she'd never had to deal with this sort of thing before, and wasn't sure what to expect, he thought philosophically.

Of course, had he been inclined to be honest with himself, Al might have admitted that he was terrified. He hadn't understood everything that the doctor had been trying to say, for he had had one heck of a headache that day, but he did understand the bit about the tumors and the healthy tissue. Maybe, in trying to resect the malignancies, the surgeon would take out too much of Stevie's liver. Maybe by Wednesday Al's little guy would be dead.

He skirted around that thought like a jungle sinkhole. Stevie couldn't die. Stevie wouldn't die. No loving God could let Stevie die.

'_And what loving God let Trudy die_?' the voice taunted. It didn't shout to be heard over the roar of the rowdy roller derby crowd. It didn't have to. It had its tongue in Al's ear. _'What loving God let Pop die, huh? And what about Lisa? And Chip? What about—'_

"Stop it!" Al snapped. The teenaged boys sitting in front of him turned in their seats and shot him dirty looks, but he scarcely noticed. He was too busy trying to argue with his own mind. '_Stop it!' _he thought ferociously. '_Stevie won't die_!'

But he knew, deep down, that he would. Of course Stevie would die. Stevie would die, and again Al would be left alone. All alone.

No, he thought as he sought out the girl in the bright orange ensemble. Not alone. There was Max. She looked so pretty in her leotard and helmet, her blond hair bound back in a sassy ponytail. He could just make out her mouth as she talked to one of the other girls clutching the barrier. She was so beautiful. So young and sweet and pretty. Untouched by the evils of the world, pursuing her dream like a girl should…

Tied down by a no-good drunk.

Al shook his head fiercely. If only he could control his thoughts. If only he could manage to hold back the waves of negativity that constantly crashed against the shores of his sanity. Sometimes he thought that the sand would give out beneath him, and he would be dragged into the undertow of darkness that waited just out of sight…

He got to his feet, and shuffled to the end of the row, ignoring the snide comments of those he squeezed past. He couldn't sit still. He would go for a little walk, and be back in the arena in time to watch Max's heat.

Yesterday had been a rough day. Tired and discouraged, and sick of everyone avoiding him, Al had wandered down to the chemistry labs. He'd bought a candy bar from the vending machine in the lounge and tried to bump casually into Thorgard. He had wanted to sort out whatever bad blood was mysteriously between them, because he was lonely and because Thorgard was a friend, but he hadn't been able to find him. If it hadn't been for Dan Penvenen, Al probably would've gone back to his office to drink himself into a stupor.

It was funny, Al thought as he walked, how Dan always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. He was always there when you needed him. On the other hand, wasn't that the definition of a friend? Dan had coaxed him to come up to the surface cafeteria for a decent cup of coffee, and had listened while he unloaded his thoughts about his sudden ostracism. Dan hadn't even tried to chew him out for being a little tipsy. Dan probably hadn't even noticed. That was the kind of a friend Dan was.

Al smiled to himself. He was doing okay. He had Max, and he had one friend, anyway. He'd never been so good at making friends, and he certainly couldn't hang on to them for long, but at least he had one right now. That was all he needed.

He didn't realize that he had been making his way to the concession stand until he arrived. The kid behind the counter asked what he wanted. He ordered a beer and knocked it back quickly. He tossed the plastic cup away, his mind flickering only briefly over his usual compunctions about abusing the environment, and ordered another.

He would go back at watch Max in just a minute…

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Florida was pretty. Cape Canaveral didn't have the same tropical glow as some parts of the state, but it was very beautiful. He sat on a pipe that spanned a reservoir, staring out at the green space next to the air base. It was a nice place, as military installations went. He couldn't remember ever having seen one with so much room to spread out. Reflecting on the solemn quietude of nature, he could almost forget the disappointment.

The Air Force official who had brought him out here had been very tactful. He was very sorry to have wasted the time of such a qualified scientist, but the position had been filled. They really needed someone out here with experience in aeronautics, and although there was no doubt that he was a brilliant young man, practicality had to come first. Hopefully he would take the chance to look around? Any of the astronauts would be happy to give him a tour…

He sighed, ruffling his sandy hair and furling his lids over his green eyes.

Oh, well. His mom had always said that things that _seem_ too good to be true probably are.

He was flying back to New York in the morning, thankfully on NASA's tab. Something would turn up. He _could _always go back to school and pick up another degree.

The trouble was that he really wanted to start living his life, instead of just dreaming it.


	45. Chapter FourtyFour

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

It was, to say the least, awkward. Prysock was trying to distract him by spouting off meaningless statistics. Eulalie kept making feeble excuses. Penvenen—the self-important snob of a mole—stood there without even the faintest hint of his internal smirk on his Company-trained lips. Each additional second that this insipid tableau dragged on reminded Les Davies how much he hated this job and how much he resented the holier-than-thou son of a bitch who had taken an American officer, full of pride and courage and bravado, and turned him into _this_.

"This" was an old pot-bellied politician married to a hag. It was a man who hated his job only slight less than he hated his reflection, and who had nothing to look forward to but on affluent state-financed retirement in whatever subtropical hell the ball-and-chain chose. A man who hardly knew his children, never saw his grandchildren, and spent ten months of the year living on top of a swamp. His days were filled with fiscal reports and project proposals, and his nights were an abyss of promiscuous sex, Camels cigarettes, and double martinis.

And it was _all_, he reminded himself bitterly for the seven thousandth time since Admiral MacArthur had left Starbright, Calavicci's fault.

"Does he do this a lot?" Davies asked, just because he knew it would make the secretary hop. She was about the same age as his son—and so a little old for Les's taste, but she was slender and gorgeous, and cute as a cotton stalk when you got her flustered.

"Oh, no, _no_!" she stammered, just as he had predicted. "Well, not often… I mean, sometimes he takes a day in lieu, but he stays late into the night four or five times a week, and he always—"

The telephone cut her off. Davies tapped his foot in impatience while she answered it.

"Administration, how may I help you?… He is?… Yes, thank you… Thank you, colonel… Yes. And you as well."

She cradled the phone, and looked at the three expectant men.

"That was Colonel Smythe," she said, a hint of sadness in her voice. "Two of his men are going to… uhm… escort Captain Calavicci down here."

Prysock flinched, averting his eyes.

"He's Head of Security?" Davies asked Penvenen, whose face was still unreadable even though he was exuding a cloying aura of self-satisfaction. Sometimes Les though that the black-suited weasel was manipulating all of them, himself included.

"Yes," said Penvenen. "The Colonel is both discrete and dedicated. He's a true asset to Starbright."

Unlike Calavicci, Davies thought smugly. It did not even occur to him that this was exactly what Dan Penvenen wanted him to think.

The five minutes that elapsed between the phone call and Captain Calavicci's arrival were the longest in the whole pedantic morning. At last, there was the sound of booted feet marching in step, and through the glass doors, the Project Administrator came into view.

He was wearing a ridiculous blue outfit: baggy dress pants and an unbelievably busy suit with some sort of lurid geometric print. He had what looked like a glowing neon campaign button over his breast pocket, and his tie—a green thing that was even brighter and less professional than the shirt—hung loose below the open collar. His hair was unruly and right on the border of being too long for regs. The two smartly-uniformed enlisted men who flanked him only served to emphasize his bedraggled state.

He hauled the door open, holding it long enough for this escort to pass through, and then took in the room with somewhat bleary eyes.

"What is this?" he demanded, looking at Eulalie.

"Congressman Davies has dropped by for a visit," she said pleasantly, as if the Committee representative was a next-door neighbor bearing a platter of cookies.

Al wasn't looking at it that way. He turned towards Davies. "What are you doing here?" he asked, a trifle abruptly. His always gravelled voice was rougher than usual, and his bloodshot eyes were sunken into shadows. Under the smells of perspiration and liquor, there was a strange, almost antiseptic scent that Les couldn't place.

He smiled a large, false smile. "Just wanted to see how things are coming along at Starbright," Davies said cheerily. "Thought maybe I could have another lunch with you and that charming young wife of yours."

"Thanks but no thanks," Al muttered. His eyes fell on Penvenen. "Hey, Dan. How's things?"

"Just fine, thank you, Captain," the double agent said. "How are you?"

"Tired," Al said softly. Then he shrugged and tried to shake off whatever was eating at him. "I wasn't expecting you."

"Ah, well, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision," Davies said. "I hear you've been going through a bit of a rough patch."

"I don't know what you mean," said Al. "You want to come into my office? I'm sure everyone else has other things they need to take care of."

Les acquiesced, and they moved into the adjoining room. Al closed the door and moved towards his desk. He wasn't quite steady on his feet, and his hand shook as he grabbed at the chair. He sat down, drawing one hand quickly across his brow.

"What can I do for you?" he asked leadenly.

He looked so tired and strained that for a moment Davies found himself on the verge of recanting. Then he remembered that the man was a womanising alcoholic who was running this project into the ground—and that he was a holier-than-thou bastard who didn't deserve any mercy.

"I'm assessing the Project," the politician said. "You're undergoing a lot of staff turnover right now, with Eleese leaving. I heard Thorgard's planning on retiring at last—"

Calavicci looked up, and something of the old fire burned in his brown eyes. "Who says he's planning to retire?" he said. "He didn't say anything to me."

"Well, he's spoken to Human Resources," Les said, shrugging indifferently. "Anyway, I was thinking that with all the new staff the Committee might look into making further changes."

"What changes?"

Again, Davies almost lost his nerve. It was only the knowledge that he had an expert backing him that enabled him to continue. After all, Penvenen had coached him well, and Penvenen worked for an agency that had engineered the overthrow of entire governments. A simple thing like an administrative coup was nothing in comparison.

"Well, for one, we might consider replacing you," Davies said.

There was a long, stunned silence. Al stared at him like a man whose best buddy had just ratted him out to the "V" for an extra water ration. When at last he spoke, his voice was hoarse with shock.

"Me?"

Davies closed his eyes. "You're not getting any younger," he said callously. "You're not exactly stable. I mean, after what you've been through I can't blame you, but you have to admit—"

"Unstable?" Al snapped, going from petrified to furious in a split second. "What I've been through? You son of a bitch! Who the hell are you to patronize me? Are _you_ unstable? We've 'been through' the same shit!"

The cold laugh was genuine. "Oh, _no_," Davies mocked. "No, we _couldn't_ have. You're special, remember? One of the "Men Left Behind". You suffered through horrors that _I_ can't even imagine." He reigned himself in, aware that he was going to far. "Anyway, it's got nothing to do with what you did in 'Nam—or what was done _to_ you. Your behavior is unacceptable. Your attendance is erratic. Look at yourself. You haven't shaved or showered in what, two days?"

"I've been busy," Al said flatly, one hand pawing self-consciously at his shirt.

"Not at Starbright!" Davies said. "Penvenen said you've been gone since Saturday at nine."

Using the surname and the exact figure were tactical errors, but Calavicci didn't catch them.

"I've been busy, Les, okay?" he said. "It was important."

"Busy with what?" Davies pressed. "You don't have any family, and Pen—and your wife's mother lives in Michigan. Where were you?"

"Phoenix," Al said. "It was nothing, Les."

"You said it was important!" Davies contradicted.

"And personal," Al snapped.

"Gambling?" asked Davies. "Women? Or did you just hole up in some cheap motel and crawl inside a bottle?"

Calavicci looked as if he had been slapped in the face. Rage, betrayal, and consternation mingled into the murky pools of his irises. "Starbright's my project," he said. "She's mine, and you're not going to take her away from me."

"It's nothing personal, Captain," Les lied. "It's just that the Committee's been worried about your conduct. There's been a lot in recent reports that doesn't reflect well on you or on the Project. I didn't want to believe it, but looking at you now… Al, if something doesn't change, you're gone. Understand?"

He might as well have asked Calavicci to spin straw into gold. Men didn't change. Les knew that only too well. No matter how you tried, you'd always be the same worthless loser you had been born. The only release was death. Personally, he'd had his chance at that escape during one hellish summer at Briarpatch, before one dago lieutenant had decided to martyr himself. The fire of hatred burned hot, and Davies didn't feel any remorse as Calavicci sighed miserably.

"I'm fine, Les," he whispered. "I've just… it's been… it's been a rough month, that's all. Things are… I'm fine."

The resolve wavered. With sympathy that he hadn't known that he could still feel, Les said, "I know how it is with the booze. It helps. But it's not going to help you now."

Calavicci glared at him. "I don't have a drinking problem," he said coldly. "I'm fine."

"Sure you are," Davies said, placing his hand on the doorknob. But Calavicci _wasn't_ fine, and he knew it.

And he was glad.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

They both needed a distraction. Although Stevie's operation had gone well, with the surgeon removing the three targeted tumors, and two of the others, it had been a long and stressful experience. He was still in the Children's Hospital in Phoenix, where he would remain under observation until Friday. Maxine had wanted to stay with him and Celestina, and she knew that Al felt the same way, but they couldn't stay away from Starbright for a whole week without notice. So they had come back, only to find Smythe and four Marines waiting to drag Al off to his office. Confused and unhappy, Maxine had made her way back to their suite alone.

Either Al was trying to cut back, or he was drinking more than ever, because his behavior had changed over the last week or so. He was grim, distant and easily distracted. There was always a strange look in his eyes, as if it was only obstinate determination that was allowing him to survive any given minute. Max knew that he was taking Stevie's illness badly—almost personally—and she knew that he was worried about replacing Donna Eleese. He needed something to cheer him up.

Max did, too. She wasn't used to this kind of stress. The fear of losing someone she cared about and the strange pain that came with watching Al's obvious misery were alien sensations. The entire situation was new, and she was completely out of her depth. Had she not had the distraction of her studies, she probably would've been going crazy. She was pouring all of her energy into physics, before her tutor left for Washington State. As she moved through her workbooks, Maxine found that she had fewer and fewer questions, and she was proud of that. It was almost enough to balance the bitter disappointment of the most recent roller derby failure. Still, the glamorous dream was more precious than the pragmatic one, and she hankered over it in spite of herself. She promised herself that just as soon as Stevie was back home and their schedule returned to normal, she would start practicing every day, morning and night.

For now, though, she needed something to take her mind off of reality, and a night of games and lovemaking seemed to fit the bill. Having showered and preened a little, she was now ready to scope out the night's activities, and she opened the drawer full of toys.

Her eighth grade tiara caught her eye first. It was tempting: she loved to play goddess. But Al always got a strange look in his eye when he talked about Aphrodite and Hephaestus, and she didn't think he enjoyed that game as much as she did. She was all out of mint leaves, and she wondered briefly if vanilla extract would serve the same purpose. Deciding it wasn't quite right, she rifled through the other toys. There was a yo-yo, a ridiculous sequined tube top left over from Atlantic City, an assortment of lotions and massage oils, a bandeau with faux fur cat ears, a rainbow-striped vinyl belt, face paint and body glitter of the kind that professional dancers wore, a pair of ratty pom-poms, some improbably costume jewellery, and a pair of plastic vampire teeth.

Max popped them into her mouth, wrinkling her nose a little at the cold plastic taste. That might be fun, she thought, pushing aside a black lace fan and picking out a long, fringed shawl. As she shook it out there was a heavy metallic _clang_. She picked up the object that had fallen free, and smiled. She had forgotten all about _those_!

She was beginning to get an idea now. It was really too bad that she didn't have a black dress: she couldn't be a proper vampire without one. On the other hand, she had always been good at improvising. She moved towards the closet and set to work assembling the rest of her costume.

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM_

Al nuzzled the pillowcase with a satiated sigh, and Maxine slipped her arm out from under his head, kissing his curls out of the corner of her mouth. On the floor by the doorway, visible even from her prone position, his clothes lay tangled with the various elements of her vampire costume. She smiled, rubbing her lower lip against the plastic prosthetic teeth. They had made the kissing interesting, all right. At first she had found them awkward, but by now they were hardly even a remarkable presence in her mouth.

A shallow snore turned her attention from the cast-off garments back to her husband. His eyes were closed, and a faint, blissful grin still played upon his lips. Max cuddled closely, running her hand over the ridges of scar tissue marring his chest. He was awfully thin, she noted as her fingers rippled against his ribs. Her touch penetrated his subconscious, and he murmured something unintelligible. She petted his hair.

There had been something eating him when he came into the suite. Since he'd been escorted off by two Marines, Max imagined it had something to do with the Project. She had closed the door, locked it, and announced, in her best _Comptess de Dracula_ voice, that this was her palace, and he was her prisoner. He had simply stared at her for a moment, before entering wholeheartedly into the game. It had taken them very little time indeed to make it to the bedroom.

Now he was drowsing off, obviously content, and Max felt warm and sleepy herself. Neither of them was worrying about the Project, or Stevie, or high school equivalency, or alcohol or even the roller derby. The distraction had worked.

Encouraged by her success, Maxine rolled towards the bedside table, where she had stowed her other toy. There was no reason that the game had to stop now. Eventually, Al would wake up, and when he did, he would discover that the vampire had pulled up the drawbridge and trapped him inside. They would be able to have a second session of impassioned lovemaking; something that had been standard fare in their first months of marriage and that had now become almost a thing of the past.

She had never used these before, at least not as an instrument of pleasure. Maxine very carefully opened each half. As she did so, the connecting chain rattled and Al muttered in his sleep. He rolled onto his back. Maxine cautiously lifted his left hand and affixed one bracelet around his wrist. Gently and slowly, she raised his arm above his head, and then reached for the other. She threaded the chain around one of the posts of the headboard, and then fastened the second circle around his right wrist. The handcuffs rattled a little as Al's arms sank into the position of least resistance.

Satisfied, Maxine tossed the key across the room, where it landed among their cast-off clothing. She sat up, untangled the sheets from Al's legs, and drew the bedclothes over both of them. Then she cuddled close to her husband's warm body, and began to drift towards sleep. Her last thought before she lost herself in slumber was that it was going to be exciting when he woke up…


	46. Chapter FourtyFive

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Calavicci was losing touch with reality. He couldn't remember the day—the day? He couldn't remember the month. The year… he remembered the year. It was… it was… panic that had nothing to do with the cold or the pain or the isolation ripped through him. He couldn't remember the year! He couldn't remember how long he had been in this hell, how long it had been since he'd heard an American voice, how long since he'd had anything to eat…

He tried to remember something, anything, that would help him anchor himself in the present. Anything that could convince him that he was still alive, that he still existed. Sometimes he wished he didn't exist. He wondered if there really was a place where there was no suffering, no anguish, no filth or wretched hunger. A place where your body wasn't covered in sores, and your teeth weren't loose, and you had something to look forward to other than the next beating…

He wondered if Bobby was okay. He tried to remember the last time he had seen the Air Force captain. The morning that the schoolteacher had come back to the village…

He assumed that she had been a schoolteacher, because she could read and write—and 'cause he'd seen her a couple of times watching the children at their lessons. He'd had one or two teachers in his own time who would've made great bloodthirsty guerrillas. Once upon a time, this one hadn't been so bad. She'd been the kind who would loosen your bonds before your hands started to rot, or sneak you an extra couple ounces of water when you were hovering on the verge of death. Then something had changed. A few months before that mission, the trap that Quon had laid for the detachment of SEALs, she had morphed into a cold and unforgiving sadist, second only to the Bitch herself.

This had been her idea. He strained against the shackles, even though he knew it was useless. God, his arms hurt. He squeezed his eyes tightly closed, trying to hold back the tears of anguish that threatened to spill down his cheeks. He was suspended between two trees, his manacled arms above his head, and his legs shackled to an iron bar that was tethered to a thick branch. His body was bent into a perfect V-shape with the exception of his head, which he could no longer even attempt to hold upright. The last time he had been able to do so, he had noticed—almost academically—that his feet were turning an unhealthy gray, and he imagined that the same was true of his hands. At least his legs were more or less numb, although despite the fact that he had soiled himself twice since being left like this his lower abdomen and pelvis felt strangely bloated. His arms, on the other hand… oh, God, his arms. The tension began in his wrists, mutating and intensifying as it moved towards his elbows. His biceps burned with ungodly fire, and his shoulders were strained to the last extreme before dislocation. The long muscles lapping around his upper ribs felt like old sinew stretched too long in the sun.

A sharp, merciless convulsion shook through him. His teeth ached with the effort of fighting the chill. His muscles twitched and jerked, and another spasm tore through his back. The mosquitoes were feasting on his naked flesh. He was cold, and his arms hurt… they hurt so much…

The sound of sandaled feet made him stiffen, and another convulsion started in his wasted muscles. Maybe it was just some skinny little soldier boy coming to drag him back to the hootch. On the other hand, maybe it was Quon, with some new instrument of torture, or maybe even a bullet to plant in his skull.

He hoped it was a bullet.

The shadow fell across his washboard chest, and he had to fight the instinct to vomit out of sheer terror. The shadow was too tall to be Quon, too slender to be Scabs. Broad shoulders, lean limbs, and bony hips. Fresh panic seized him, and he struggled against the shackles. The irrational thought flitted through his muddled mind that if he could only scurry into the underbrush like a small rodent, he could escape the impending nightmare.

A knee descended onto his chest, and the long braid of black hair slapped his cheek. He closed his eyes so that he wouldn't have to look at her gaunt face and cold, slanted eyes. The Bitch. She was back.

"Titi say you bad," she hissed menacingly. Long, cruel fingers tugged at his matted curls. "Break rules."

"I didn't," he rasped. He wasn't sure it was true. He couldn't remember why he was down here. He couldn't even remember _when_ he had been brought down here. He just had to argue. He had to fight, because if he didn't then he had nothing. Some day it would all be over, and he would go home, and he'd be able to look Beth in the eye, and tell her that he'd never given up, that no matter how many times they had broken him, he had rallied again and spit in their faces.

The knee dug further into his twisted ribs. "Titi not liar. Stinking Air Pirate lies. American filth." She spat disdainfully upon him, and despite long intimacy with debasement, he flinched. Somehow you never quite got used to being treated like an animal.

Although he had been expecting it, the blow still caught him off-guard. Out of nowhere, the Bitch whipped a shaft of green bamboo, bringing it down across his ribs with more force than anyone who wasn't a switch hitter for the Yankees had any business having in their off hand. A spray of blood spewed from his dry lips, along with all of the air in his lungs. For a second he lay there, winded, unable to inhale and wondering if maybe, just maybe, she'd finally killed him. Then an earth-shattering gasp sent black spots into his vision and sent knives of agony lancing through his torso.

"You tell lies. Very bad." The Bitch got to her feet, twirling the bamboo thoughtfully in one hand. She was toying with him. Al felt a cold void of fear opening in his abdomen. It was going to be serious this time. She meant business. He wished that he could remember what he had done that was giving her the excuse to do this. He hated himself for it, but he really _didn't _want to be punished. He was so tired of pain. He couldn't bear it much longer.

"Maybe you sorry?" the Bitch asked, her voice low and insidious. "Ask, we forgive?"

Al almost laughed. He knew that game. She would try to wrangle a confession out of him, to extort some measure of cooperation with her propaganda and lies. The pain, the harassment, the anguish of a battle-weary spirit… it would all continue until he captulated, grovelled,k begged for forgiveness, admitted to anything and everything just to end the torture. Once, in a moent of weakness, he had confessed pre-emptively, hoping to elude punishment by giving her what she wanted. It hadn't worked. She had beaten him senseless anyway. Now he knew she couldn't be trusted. It was best to fight. At least then you could cling a little longer to the ghosts of self respect.

With as much vitriol as his parched throat could muster, he cursed at her in her own tongue. They hated it, they all did. That he knew enough of their language to show his disdain at once frightened and galled them.

From this tormentor, he expected further goading in response to his challenge. She loved to play. She loved to eat away at his soul and at what was left of his sanity.

Instead, she swung her arms to the right and brought down the rod of green bamboo. It struck just below his knees, and his abdomen tensed reflexively, pulling harder on his arms. A spasm tore through his chest, and a jolt of nervous electricity seemed to shiver back into his groin.

Then the Bitch went for the feet. The supple cane licked through the air, rebounding once, twice, thrice, off of his calloused soles. He shuddered, screwing his eyes closed against the pain. The bamboo was green and well-soaked, as flexible as leather and many times more painful. Although usually it took a while for the true anguish of this particular method to take hold, Al's numb and hypoxic feet were quick to respond to the not-quite-rhythmic blows. Soon finely-honed needles of pain began to shoot down towards his hips, and his upper body writhed involuntarily, straining with instinctive futility against the manacles immobilizing his wrists.

"Break rules," the Bitch said dispassionately, like a high school teacher reminding a class of miscreants that, for the hundredth time, they should not run in the halls. "This bad. Wicked Air Pirate. Scum."

Al still couldn't remember what the hell he had done to deserve this. Must've been something damned unforgivable. The bamboo rod landed on a particularly labile place, and he almost screamed. He was rapidly losing all sensation in his thighs and trunk. The only reality was the anguish in his feet, which was somehow one with the anguish and lobe-rending pressure in his skull, and the tortured spasms that ripped through his arms as his body struggled despite his better judgement to free itself. The Bitch hit his heels with a broad, stinging blow, and he wrenched to the right, the manacles rattling as they bit into his wrists. Then his whole body jolted as if struck by lighting when a blow found his arches, and one shoulder popped out of its socket. He screamed so loudly that they had to have heard him in New York, and again he pulled, involuntarily, against his stretched and immobilized arms.

Again and again the cane struck his feet. The anguish was now a cohesive baseline with peaks of torment beyond mortal imagining, a cohesive whole from his toes to his cerebellum. His arms, an entity unto themselves, provided a sharp, frenetic staccato as he swung against them with each successive strike. He heard someone whimpering, blubbering incoherently and begging for mercy. Sucker, he thought. Coward.

After a while, he could hear nothing any more but the tortured screams of the blood in his ears and the rattling of the manacles that bound his wrists.

MWMMWMWMWMWM 

It was the rattling of the chain linking the two 'cuffs that roused Maxine from her sweet post-coital slumber. The almost musical noise of metal against metal was an incongruity, not at all part of her usual nocturnal environment, and it took a moment for the thought to crystallize. She blinked, staring into the darkness, and ran her tongue along her teeth—except they weren't her teeth, and it took her a minute to remember what she and Al had been up to. The memory brought a satisfied smile to her lips, altered a little by the plastic prosthetics. Max rolled onto her side and spat them into her hand, grimacing a bit as the cool air struck her pearly whites. That she had drifted off with a pair of plastic vampire teeth in her mouth bordered on the ridiculous, she thought.

The chains rattled again, and Maxine grinned. Maybe he was waking up! An anticipatory shiver ran down the length of her torso. She'd had a boyfriend who was into kinky stuff—more than one, actually, but only this one had swung towards silk scarves and bedposts—but before they had made it to any of the really intricate stuff, Max had discovered that his love for violence extended past the safe realm of fantasy and into the heavy-handed domestic variety. The break-up had followed almost at once, but she had retained a certain hangdog curiosity that was, she felt, about to be satisfied. She reached over and laid a hand on Al's chest.

A hollow gasp was followed by more rattling as the bed shook a little. His arms twitched against the pillows, and Maxine felt him shudder beneath her hand. It wasn't a shudder of pleasure.

"Al?" she whispered. There was no reply.

The backlight of his alarm clock afforded a little visibility, and Max could see Al's hands, pushed up between the bedposts. His fingers twitched like spider legs as his wrists strained against the handcuffs. His legs were rigid and his face was furrowed with deep creases. Maxine sat up a little, puzzled and growing progressively more anxious.

"Al?" she tried again. "Al?"

Suddenly, he pulled his elbows forward so that the chain thumped against the railing of the headboard. A strange, gurgling noise tore from his lips, and he began to quiver. His back arched, and the whole bed shook as he tugged frantically against the handcuffs. Incoherent noises of torment began to form words.

"…confess! I broke the rules! I broke the rules! Oh, God, stop—God!" He screamed, and his whole body tensed. His shoulders rocked from side to side, and Maxine pulled back as his head began to thrash. His legs, strangely, didn't move at all. "Stop! Please! Oh, God… I'm an Air Pirate, I'm a criminal, I lied, I broke the rules, please!"

Maxine turned and switched on the bedside light. Al's eyes were screwed tightly closed, and she could see the tension in the muscles of his shoulders and chest. She placed one hand firmly on his breastbone.

"Al?" she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "Al, wake up. Wake up!"

He tried to shrink away from her, but with his hands bound, there was only so far that he could go. His feet slid off the edge of the bed, and he tried to stand. His arms stretched so that his elbows locked, and he began to trash like a fish on a hook, rending the air with panicked screams.

"Stop! Stop!" he howled.

"Al!" Max shrieked, herself on the verge of an anxiety attack.

His eyes flew open, wide and glassy and utterly vacant. His breathing was swift and shallow, and the torment that was wracking his whole body was obvious. Frightened and confused, Maxine turned back to the nightstand. She had left the key to the handcuffs there, next to the lamp.

They weren't there.

Al was still fighting his bonds, twisting horribly and jerking from side to side. Again and again his entire body would seize, and he would scream hoarsely. Between the spasms, he wept, begging for mercy and repeating over and over again that he had broken the rules, that he had lied, and that he was some kind of a pirate who deserved to be punished. It was obvious that he was having a nightmare, and with his hands chained to the bed, he was going to hurt himself.

Max searched the floor around the nightstand, but the key wasn't there. She tried frantically to remember what she had done with it. Maybe it was still in the drawer with the rest of the toys. She crossed the room and began to rummage through her assortment of goodies. When a cursory search revealed nothing, she began to remove objects one by one, tossing them aside. Soon the drawer was empty, but there was no key to be found.

In the bed, Al's convulsions were worsening, and his sounds of agony ripped through the air. They followed Maxine into the other room, as she tried to retrace her steps and remember _what_, on _earth_, she had done with the key. She was dimly aware of the frightened tears coursing down her cheeks and the strained, hiccoughing sobs that jerked at her chest. The noises of Al's night terror were not abating. He wasn't waking up.

She couldn't find the key. Max ran back into the bedroom, and tried again to wake her husband. She grabbed his shoulder and shook him, screaming his name between frightened sobs. He shrieked like a tormented demon, and rattled off a string of strange sounds. Again his torso shook, and again he pulled against the handcuffs. Max sprung away as his flailing intensified. In her haste and anxiety, she overbalanced, landing on her rump amid their cast-off clothing. Instinctively, she scurried backwards towards the wall.

As she did so, her hand lit upon something hard and cold. With a shuddering gasp, she seized it: the key! She ran back to the bed and fumbled with it, trying to get it into the lock. Al was still fighting the restraints, and Max withdrew her hand with a little cry as her finger was pinched between the chain and the bedpost. She grabbed his wrist, the adrenaline tighteng her grip more than she intended. Al whimpered and continued to struggle, but Maxine managed to slip the key into the lock. There was a click and the cuff sprung open.

Max drew back as Al's arms flew forward, striking his chest. Instantly, responding to an instinct deeper than bone, Al curled into a ball, rolling onto his side and curling both hands up to protect his head. He began to shudder like a frightened animal, and the noises that came from his throat bordered on the inhuman. Maxine hastily rallied her wits and removed the other cuff. She hurled the manacles and the key across the room, where they landed with a muted crash.

"Al?" she whispered, touching his sweat-drenched back. "Al, wake up."

"No, no. No more. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he sobbed, drawing his limbs in even more tightly. His fingers dug into his scalp, and the trembling worsened. "No, no, no…"

"Al, it's Max! Wake up! It's just a bad dream!"

Again, he mumbled something about a pirate. It didn't make sense. Maxine's own nightmares were about real things that had happened to her. Al was dreaming about pirates. Images of Disney villains danced on the fringes of her imagination. She had always thought Al's dreams had a basis in reality, something to do with his imprisonment in Vietnam maybe. If he was this troubled by dreams about pirates, maybe his problems were worse than she had imagined.

"Al," she repeated firmly; "it's just a dream. It's just a dream. Wake up. Please, wake up!"

Am enormous inhalation shook the whole bed, and suddenly Al was scrambling around her. He reached the edge of the bed, and began to pull frenetically at the nightstand, trying to reach behind it. Maxine hurried around the bed to help him. As she pulled the piece of furniture away from the wall, there was a heavy _clunk_. She looked down and saw a bottle of whiskey. It had apparently been stashed behind the little table, and there was no doubt in her mind that this was what Al wanted.

She looked from the bottle to her shivering, desperate-eyed husband, still in the grip of his night terror. For a moment she contemplated running to the kitchen and pouring the liquor down the sink. Then before she realized what she was doing she had the thing in her hand and the cap off. She held it out, and Al snatched it. His hands trembled so violently that the bottle clicked against his teeth. One long swig, and he paused to drag in a ragged breath. Another, and his muscles began to relax. A third, and he fell back against the headboard, cradling the bottle against his chest. His eyes closed, and he began to draw in deep, steady breaths.

"Al?" Maxine ventured.

"What?" he said, his voice harsh and confrontational.

Maxine felt her confidence ebb away. She didn't know what to do, and she didn't know what to say. "N-nothing," she stammered. Her eyes fell upon his wrists, red and starting to bruise where the handcuffs had bitten into them. She knew that she was crying, but there was nothing she could do about it. She climbed onto the bed and crept close to Al, wrapping her arms around his waist. His body was cold and clammy, and hers was covered in a thin sheen of hot perspiration. She felt him tense as she drew close. "Al, I'm sorry," she murmured. "I thought…"

He took another long quaff from the bottle. "I dunno what you're talking about," he said gruffly.

"Al, what's wrong?" Max whispered, kissing his ear.

"Nothing," he said.

His voice was hard with hatred and loathing. Maxine shrank away. It was no more than she deserved for being so stupid. She slipped off the bed again, and moved towards the bureau. She took out a nightgown, and slipped it over her head before picking up one of the blankets that had fallen to the floor in the chaos. She wrapped it around her shoulders.

"I'll… I'll just sleep on the couch," she whispered. Then she withdrew from the room. Alone on the sofa, she cried quietly for a long time, but the light in the bedroom was still on when she finally drifted back to sleep.

MWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Al fiddled with the button on his left cuff. Prysock was asking some kind of question about management and people skills. The CalTech graduate, a thirty-eight-year-old redhead with a bushy beard, made some kind of answer, as formulaic and politically correct as the query. Al tried to feign interest with a nod.

He was tired and bored and vaguely nauseated. All he had been able to do for the last day and a half was worry. He thought he was losing his mind. The other night, he'd dreamed about the Bitch—hell, "dreamed" was the wrong word. He'd been back in that jungle, strung between two trees like a carcass. The whole thing had been so real. The raw torment that came with a beating of the feet, the terror, the desperation… and worst of all, he had been certain that his hands had been bound. His wrists still felt sore, as if they had been locked in heavy manacles. He was losing his grip on reality.

They were talking about confidentiality now. The Viking of CalTech wasn't married, and he hardly ever saw his sister, so family wasn't an issue. Phil reiterated the importance of secrecy, reminding the man that he was already sworn to silence. Al didn't like this one. He was pedantic and boring. Eleese, frusterating and self-righteous though she could be, was at least interesting.

His hand shook as he moved it towards the armrest. Al gripped the leather upholstery, trying to hide the tremor. He needed a drink, and every second that this academic droned meaninglessly on was one more second's delay in getting one. He had some gin in the bottom drawer, in the fine old _film noir_ tradition, and the thought of it was a torment. One little sip would steady his hands and calm him down. One little sip would help him forget the gnawing fear that he was, after all, on the brink of madness. One little sip would take the ache away from his wrists. He had been so _sure_ that his hands had been literally, actually chained together, and that was the worst part. If he couldn't separate the nightmares from reality anymore, then he was doomed.

He realized that they were both looking at him, and his mind sifted swiftly through the background noise of the last two minutes. He found his place in the conversation. Phil had just asked how soon Leif could start, Leif had said two weeks, and Phil had asked if Al didn't think that they could get the preliminary contracts drawn up for that afternoon.

"I don't think so," Al said.

The Norseman chortled like a sycophant. "No hurry," he said. "I can stay one more night."

"That won't be necessary," Al said. "Thanks for coming out. The Project will pick up the tab for your flights, of course."

Stunned silence. Finally, Phil spoke. "Captain, what do you mean?"

Al shrugged. "I appreciate your interest in the position," he said. "Good luck in all your future endeavors."

Eric the Red blinked. "What are you saying?" he asked inanely.

"You're obviously an intelligent man," Al said pleasantly. "I don't want to waste your time. You're a very qualified scientist, and probably a great guy, but you're not quite who we're looking for to run this department. Thanks all the same, though. We really do appreciate you coming out here."

"Captain—" Phil began. Then he schooled himself and extended a hand. "Thank you, Doctor Psheyblo," he said courteously. "It really was a pleasure to meet you. Eulalie will show you to the surface, and one of our Marines will drive you back to Phoenix."

"Thanks," the man said, almost but not quite hiding his disappointment. He got to his feet and extended a hand to Al. "My pleasure, Captain."

Phil held the door open, reiterating his cordial farewell. As soon as the scientist was gone, he closed the door and turned on Al.

"What's wrong with him?" he demanded. "Why don't you want to hire him?"

Al shrugged. "He's not right."

"He's the _only_ qualified applicant we've had!" Prysock cried. "We've got a little over three months to replace Eleese—less, 'cause we need the new guy to train with her! What's wrong with Doctor Pshyblo?"

"He's boring," Al said. His hand was in his pocket, fingering the key to his desk drawer. He wanted a drink so badly, but he was ashamed to get it in front of Phil. He didn't want to look weak. He didn't want Phil to think that he had a problem. He _didn't_ have a problem, but it might look that way to Phil.

"He's brilliant."

"He's _intelligent_," Al said. "But he's not creative. He did his PhD work on particle acceleration—"

"And we want him to run the particle accelerator!" Phil exclaimed. "He's perfect!"

Al shook his head. "We're on the cutting edge of science," he said. "We need somebody who'll push the boundaries, not somebody who'll rehash what we already know. We want to expand our borders, not dig down into the clay. He's not right."

"We don't have a lot of options, Captain! Quantum physicists don't just grow on trees, and you can't just turn one away like that—the only one we've had!" Prysock protested.

"He's not right for the job," Al repeated, fixing his subordinate with his sternest commander's eye—the one that meant that there would be no more arguing. "He's not who we need here."

Prysock shook his head, scarcely able to mask his disbelief and disgust. Then he left the room. Al wasted no time at all in opening the drawer and helping himself to a little liquid pleasure.


	47. Chapter FortySix

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

The Colt bucked like an untrammelled stallion. Al flinched at the thought that smacked of a cheap detective thriller, and squinted, trying to bring the paper target into focus through the fog in his eyes. When at last he more or less succeeded, he sighed unhappily. He'd missed it entirely. Six shots, six clear misses. He holstered his pistol and flexed his fingers. His aim was off today, but he could still quick-draw with the best of them.

He hooked the barrel under his fingers, and made it almost into the firing position before his hand began to shake. He tightened his grip, trying to stop the spasm. It was no use. He returned the piece to its holder and leaned heavily against the side of the stall. He dug out his stainless-steel flask and swished a little bourbon around in his mouth.

"Al?"

He jumped a little, and cursed under his breath. He knew she was waiting, and he knew he had to do this, but there was a part of his mind that wished he could run from the problem, a part of his mind that didn't want to cope with Stevie's illness.

"Al, come on! We have to get going!"

Al sighed and began to unbuckle the supple leather holster as he walked towards the officers' parking lot. She called out again just before he rounded the corner. "Coming, Maxie," he grunted. She was standing by the Buick, all long legs and bright colours. Part of him wanted to stop and admire her beauty, and a month ago he would have done it. Now, however, he was weighted down with worry about Stevie, sleep-starved and heartsick, and dogged by the fear of failure. Besides, Maxine would still be beautiful tomorrow.

"I'll drive," she said as he drew near. Al didn't see the way that her eyes flickered apprehensively over the gun as he stowed it under the back seat. He shuffled around to the passenger door and flung himself into the seat. The impact on his spine shot up to his head, and he clawed at his temples.

"Are you okay?" Max whispered.

"Fine." He dismissed her with a vague gesture. "Let's go before this thing takes root."

Maxine took them to the gate and it was she who went about the business of trading pleasantries with the Marine guards. As she took the vehicle out onto the meandering back road that would eventually take them to the highway, Al dug his flask out of his pocket. Max turned to follow his movement. He glared at her, daring her to protest as he raised the flask to his lips. The liquor was cheap and sour, but as it burned its way down to his stomach, Al could already feel it working its magic.

Maxine pursed her lips and turned her eyes back to the road, staring resolutely ahead. Al was torn between vindication because she was respecting his autonomy, and shame because he knew, deep inside, that he was beginning to corrupt her.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Stevie was talking at ninety miles an hour—something only Maxine seemed able to make him do.

"An' I played with the blocks. There's lotsa blocks, an' they're little an' bumpy. When you push 'em they stick together, and there's all kinds of colors. I like the blue ones best. I builded a funny tower that went up an' up. My friend Joey—Joey's sick in his bones, Max-een—he said that you gotta put the next block on the crack, so that the tower don't fall down, an' I did it, an' my tower was _so-o-o-o_ tall! Then I played with—"

Something of Al's inner anxiety must've filtered through to his face, because Celestina turned on the bench and put her hand on her son's shoulder.

"Hush, Esteban," she said. "Senor Calavicci is reading."

Out of the corner of his eye, Al could see the crestfallen expression that crumpled the child's face. Then Maxine got to her feet, holding out her hand.

"C'mon, Stevie," she said. "Let's go make a wish!"

He hopped off the bench. "A wish?" he asked eagerly.

"Sure," Max said. "If you throw a nickel in the fountain, and then make a wish, it'll come true!"

The child took her hand and they strode off towards the atrium fountain. Al turned back to the discharge summary. There was a good two minutes of silence, while he scanned over charge after charge, and Celestina watched him in silent worry. Then Al saw one item that didn't make sense.

"What is this?" he asked. "Fleet?"

"They put it inside of him," Celestina said after a moment's thought. "The nurses."

"An injection?" Al asked. "With a needle," he clarified when she shook her head in incomprehension.

"No, not a needle. It was a bottle."

"He drank it," Al muttered. He was on to the next article, but Celestina made a small, soft sound of frustration.

"No, no," she said. "They put it inside of him. They say that the medicine for the pain made him blocked up. This is bad, they say. First they try a pill. Then the nurse takes a bottle and places it inside of him. She squeezes the bottle, and the medicine goes inside. Soon everything comes out."

Al stared blankly at her for a heartbeat, while his mind worked through the convoluted description. Then he flinched in sympathy. "An _enema_," he muttered morosely. "Poor kid."

"Sí, yes, yes this is what the nurse said," Celestina agreed. "An ani—" She paused, her brow furrowing as she tried to remember.

"Enema," Al said absently. Then he turned his attention back to the invoice. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting: after all, the kid had been in a specialized hospital for ten days, undergone major surgery, been guarded carefully from infection. Still, part of him wondered how the hell he was going to pay for this. But he wasn't just going to sit back and watch Stevie die the way he had Poppa. He was going to do whatever it took, even if he wound up in debt for the nest four hundred years.

Satisfied that at least he understood where the money was going, Al left Celestina on the bench and approached the clerk behind the discharge counter. He handed her his VISA card, and she took an imprint. He signed it, and then the top sheet of a triplicate bill. Then he was done. He walked back to the bench, distantly conscious of his heavy step.

"Let's go," he said to the young woman. She got to her feet.

"What is wrong, Senor?" she asked. "It is too much money?"

"No," Al lied. "No, I'm just tired. Max—"

His call was cut off as he looked in the direction of the fountain And saw that Maxine was already on her way back. She had Stevie slung onto her left hip, his short legs dangling before and behind her long ones. His little head rested on her shoulder.

"What's wrong?" Al demanded. The boy grimaced and pressed his cheek closer to Maxine.

"Nothing," Max said, a little sharply. Then her voice softened as she brushed her cheek against the dark curls that were doomed to be the first casualties of this new war against the cancer. "He's just tired, isn't that right, Stevie?"

"Yup, yup," he murmured. " 'M tired."

Al's sigh was something between relief and misery. "Let's just get out of here," he muttered. Stevie was slated to start chemotherapy in a week's time, provided that his incision was scarred over by then, and then they would all have more than their fill of hospitals.

Maxine's gentle voice followed him all the way to the car, murmuring soft words of comfort to the weary little boy, but Al hardly heard it. His head was aching again, and a familiar tremor was starting up in his hands, but he couldn't drink in front of Celestina. He didn't want her to think he had a problem, either.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMW 

"I don't want to." The voice was firm, assertive, and almost angry.

"You've got to!" Al protested ineffectually.

Maxine shook her head so that her hair, like liquid gold, rippled and bounced. "No!" she said. "I don't want to. I'll only fall again."

"Don't be silly," Al said. "You've been practicing."

"Yes, I have!" Max cried. "And you know what? I'm not getting any better! I'm no good at this, I'll never make a team—I'll never even get through a tryout without landing on my butt! It's not meant to be, Al, and I wish you'd just let it go!"

"We shouldn't let it go!" he exclaimed. "It's your dream, and a dream's not something you just give up on. I don't want you to give up on it."

She pressed her fingertips to her forehead. "Al, we're busy with a sick little boy. You're under too much stress from the Project, you're drinking, and I'm—" She hesitated for a fraction of a second, as if rethinking her words. "I've got a job to do, too. Neither of us have time to be chasing my stupid fantasies!"

He made an attempt at a seductive smile. "Hey, I love your fantasies," he said suavely.

Max stomped her foot. "Damn it, Al! Is sex all that you think about?"

"Used to be all we _both_ thought about," Al said, his eyes narrowing in sudden suspicion. "When did that change?"

"You lousy bastard!" she shrieked. "Are you saying that's why you married me?"

"I have no idea why I married you!" he shouted. "You're the most ridiculous, inconsistent, illogical, _childish_ woman I've ever met!"

Maxine's spine went suddenly rigid. Her blue eyes were wide, and her jaw slack with shock. "Maybe I'm childish," she said, her voice low and deadly with rage; "but at least I'm not an old, unstable, unpredictable _drunk_." She strode across the room and snatched her purse off of the sofa. "I don't know who it is you really are, Al Calavicci, but you're not the man I thought I was marrying."

A band of familiar fear closed on his heart. "Max, where are you going?" he asked, following her as she made her way towards the door. "Where are you going, Maxie?"

"My office," she spat. "Don't you _dare_ bother me there. Even if _you_ can get away with skipping work and drinking on duty, _some of us_ have work to do."

"No, Maxine, wait—"

The door slammed closed, and Al was left alone. He stood there for a minute, stunned, and then crumpled against the wall, drawing his knees up to his chest and burying his head against his chest in a posture that he hadn't assumed in years.

How the hell had it happened? One minute he was encouraging her to register for the next round of roller derby tryouts in Phoenix, and the next they were at each other's throats, saying horrible, hurtful things and spitting venom all over the furniture. Sure they were both tired and stressed, worried about Stevie, uptight about the still unresolved issue that Max was taking with his occasional drink—

'_Occasional drink, my ass!_' the voice taunted. '_You're a no-good rummy, a dirty drunk! Why'd you think she's suddenly so cold? She can't stand you. She'll find herself a real man, just like the last one did. Just like _Beth_ did…_'

Al dug his nails into the flesh of his temples. "Stop it," he whimpered softly. "Leave me alone."

Even as he said it, he knew that words weren't enough. They were never enough. There was only one thing that would help.

Slowly, almost painfully, he got to his feet.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Finally, Maxine composed herself enough to return the emergency stop lever to its original position. With a brief, shuddering jolt, the elevator started up again.

She knew that they were both tired and worried, and that Al had probably been a little drunk, but that didn't mean that his words hadn't hurt. Reminding herself that she loved him, and he was a good guy, deep down, Max started for her office.

After about ten minutes, she hade to admit that her heart just wasn't in the work at all. The preparations for the next social function—an Easter breakfast and egg hunt—were not nearly enticing enough to distract her from the fight. She was upset and hurting, and her whole body felt warm, as if she were suffering from a low-grade fever. She finally stashed the paperwork in her drawer and pulled out her English workbook. She had been so busy trying to get through physics before Donna Eleese left the Project that she'd been neglecting her other subjects. She would polish up her paper on Shakespeare's _As You Like It_, and then she would see if she could find Corporal Carter. Talking books with the Marine always made her feel better. He never talked down to her, and he let her work things out for herself. She felt smart around him, and she liked that Nick was a good friend.

MWMWMWMWMWMWM

His thoughts were muddled, ricocheting off his skull and tripping over each other like pot-addled teens trying to play basketball at three in the morning. He was slipping in and out of the present so quickly that he couldn't remember now which of the myriad realities assaulting his senses _was_ his present. One minute he was on his hands and knees in the middle of the Starbright kitchenette, and the next, he was on the floor of the boys' dorm, back in the Manhattan orphanage where he had spent most of his childhood, looking intently for Kevin.

Then the time shifted again, and he could hear the bedroom door slam with such force that it shook the whole bungalow. He flinched. Why didn't she see that he had to go? They were at war, damn it! He was a soldier, and his country needed him. He'd be more use over there than some greenhorn draftee who'd never even seen an M-16 before. He had what it took. He was a hotshot Naval pilot, one of the best. He'd even flown recon right into Fidel's back yard. IF he could survive that, he could survive anything! He could stay alive over there, come home in one piece where some farm boy might not. He could live through anything Charlie threw at him.

And suddenly the linoleum morphed into mud, thick jungle gumbo seeded with monsoon rains and well-mixed with blood. A scrap of doggerel floated through Al's muddled mind: _He shall give Rome victories and defeat, and die to the gain of his son, no son; a pillow shall be his sword…_ but there were no victories here, only endless debasing defeats, and he had no son, and there was no such thing as a pillow in this fetid hell. There was only mud, and blood, and the shaft of green bamboo split into a quarter-circle with edges like a razor. He retched and coughed against the pain.

He was in the LEM, being poisoned by his own waste as the CO2 scrubs failed. Caught between the void of space and the toxin atmosphere within, he was choosing this moment, of all the ones he might have chosen, to slip into a bout of claustrophobia. The walls were closing in on him, the darkness was pressing against him, and his panic threatened to swallow him.

He could hear the dog prowling the floor above him. Every now and then it would snuffle at the crack around the bomb shelter's heavy lid—the narrow sliver that admitted just enough air to sustain life. At least, Al assumed this place was meant as a bomb shelter. It was hardly bigger than a sump hole, and every bit as damp and cold. He was huddled in a knot of misery, unable to stand, unable to stretch, with nothing to listen to but the beast above him, pacing, pacing, pacing. Periodically his scent would anger it, and it would growl. It had a deep, guttural snarl that electrified his instincts with feral terror. The message was clear: the hound of Hades would gladly rip his throat open if he made any attempt to leave his tiny prison.

Suddenly the fear meant something else entirely. He could smell hot milk and cocoa powder, and he knew that he had to stop her. She wanted to hurt herself, and it wasn't right, and she wasn't well, and he knew that he had to stop her, but he didn't know how. He didn't know what to do. How could he help Ruthie when he couldn't even help himself?

He couldn't help himself. He was so hungry. He knew that they were all having a laugh at his expense, getting their jollies off of his misery. He knew he should deny them the pleasure they wanted; the amusement of watching him grub like a pig for his meal. But he was so hungry. Closing his ears to the noises of delight, his bound hands tensing behind his back, he lowered his face into the dirt. Extending his thrush-speckled tongue, he tried to get as much rice—and as little earth—as he could before they dragged him back to the tiger cage. His cheeks burned with humiliation, and numb disbelief gripped his heart.

A lover. Sharon had a lover, and not just any lover, but Juan Penja. He was tall and strong, sober and sane and whole and everything else that Al Calavicci wasn't. AL knew it wasn't all Sharon's fault, the affair. He was to blame for much of it, for the caricature of a marriage that had never fulfilled Sharon's needs. It was partly his fault for ignoring her, taking her for granted, spending all of his time on Starbright and Stevie and all that jazz.

A fleeting blur of show tunes and dance numbers at once manic and morbid flitted through Al's mind. Al tried to snatch at hem, to grab hold of one, just one, to use as a touchstone that might anchor him in the proper reality… but all he could remember was an old marching ballad:__

O! Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag

_And smile—smile—smile._

_Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag:_

_Smile, boys; that's the style._

_What's the use of worrying?  
It never was worthwhile._

_So pack up your troubles in your old kit bag_

_And smile—smile—smile…_

He didn't give a damn what the song said: he _was_ worrying, and he wasn't about to stop. She was seeing someone else, he just knew it. A lawyer, her friends said. Or, no. No, it was a bricklayer… No, not Beth. Not Sharon. Maxine.

Maxine. Maxine, Maxine, Maxine, Maxine, Maxine…

Maxine. His little Max. Maxine.

He remembered Maxine. Golden hair and bright clothes and legs halfway up to Juno. His Max. Where was she?

A fight. They'd fought. Marriage like a train on a dead end track. A train with no brakes. A wreck waiting to happen. Only a matter of time.

No. Not Max, not his Max… but it was so hard to believe in anything right now. His hands were starting to shake again, and he tried to steady them. He tried to, and he couldn't. He knew what he had to do to stop it, but he also knew that there wasn't any left. He had emptied the last bottle ten—fifteen—twenty minutes ago. There was nothing to drink in the suite, and nothing to drink in the office, and he was starting to shake.

He closed his eyes, bracing against the spasms that he couldn't let himself surrender to. You couldn't surrender, you just couldn't, and he…

His heart skipped a beat. He could hear them, their little claws scrabbling on the floor. A rat. A rat would eat at a wounded man. A rat bite could kill you. If you were lucky, they'd gnaw you so bad that you bled to death. If you were unlucky, a little nibble would grow infected, and the poison would spread through your body, and you would die a slow, agonizing, terrible death.

He tried to scramble to his feet, but he couldn't move. He needed a drink. God, all he needed was a little drink, and he could cope with anything. A little drink, and the shaking would stop. A little drink and the rats would go away.

_'Just a little dri-in-ink…' _

The voice was back.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM 

Maxine was feeling much better after her afternoon of English course work and a decadent root beer float at the aboveground cantina. She was ready to make up with Al. She still had some fresh mint in the fridge. They could have a sweet, nostalgic night together. It had only been nine and a half months since Niagara Falls, she realized desolately. Strange. It seemed so much longer.

She turned her key in the lock, and entered the suite. The smell of alcohol was still strong in the air, and she flinched at the sight of empty bottles strewn all over the floor of the kitchenette. He had been drinking this whole time—God, had he _really_ been drinking all this time?

There was a whimper, and then a hoarse scream. Only just remembering to slam the door shut, Maxine ran into the bedroom.

Al was on the floor next to the closet, shivering and shaking. His shirt was halfway off his back, and he had been clawing at his forehead with such fervour that there were brilliant red welts over his ashen cheeks. A deep, persistent tremor was cycling through his body, and the sweat was pouring from his face and neck.

"Al?" she ventured.

"No, no, no…" he shrieked. His voice was hoarse, as if he had been shouting fruitlessly for hours.

"Al!" she cried, kneeling down next to him and taking his shoulder. "Al, it's Max! Are you okay?"

"Fine, fine, I'm fine," he sobbed. "Please, it's all gone. It's all gone. Please, please…"

He began to shake and tremble, and his eyes rolled back into his head for a moment, before he let loose a dreadful shriek. He curled into an almost fetal position. Max wanted to throw up. She had never seen anyone like this before, never…

Except once. Once she'd had a girlfriend—in Oregon, she remembered. A girlfriend who had gone on a tequila binge one weekend. Then when she had started to sober up, she had gone into these seizures. The rum fits, her boyfriend had called it. Delerium tremens.

She ran into the next room. She'd call the infirmary. Commander Bancroft would know what to do. She picked up the receiver and dialled the first two numbers. Then she stopped.

She couldn't let him see Al like this. She couldn't let _anyone_ see Al like this. There were rumors all around the Project: rumors about his drinking, rumors that he was unstable. If anyone saw him like this, shuddering and shaking on the floor, it would confirm the rumors. She loved him. She was his wife, and she had to help him. She couldn't expose him to the humiliation of being seen like this. She had to clean him up first, get him into bed…

She went back into the other room.

"Al?" she said. "Al, I've got to get you into bed. Al…"

"Please!" He seized the front of her shirt and looked at her with wild, bloodshot eyes. "Please, help me! Please help me!"

Max nodded. "I'll help you," she gasped frantically. "I'll help, I promise."

"I need, please, I need…"

He looked over his shoulder, frantically, as if there was something there that Maxine couldn't see.

"Please," he moaned. "Please, just a little… just a swallow, anything…"

He wanted liquor, she realized. He had drunk through the rest of his stash, and now he was detoxing, and there was nothing to take the edge off.

"Please!" Al wailed. There were tears streaming down his face, and another convulsion tore through him.

Afterwards, Maxine couldn't quite believe she had done it. She got to her feet and backed out of the room. Her keys were on the kitchen counter, and she recovered her purse from the sofa.

There was a bar twenty-five miles off of Starbright grounds. Surely she could get him a bottle of something there.


End file.
